


The Two Kings

by orphan_account



Series: The Kings Series [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-03
Updated: 2012-04-23
Packaged: 2017-11-02 23:24:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 38,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/374528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Originally written as a detailed AU RP, it dictates the encounters of two boys--each other's mirror and foil--as they try to play a man's game and learn the consequences of the real world. Jim Moriarty, a scholarship student, is accepted to Saint Bartholomew's Academy where he meets the King of the school, Mycroft Holmes. When they meet, a battle of intellect, will, and sex, ensues and within a month, their lives are irrevocably changed, as they sew strings beneath each other's skin, tying their fates together forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> AN: This story is AU, so the characters may seem a bit OOC in parts. It’s not beta-ed, but it is Brit-picked. In this AU, Mycroft is an only child, so there is no Sherlock to keep him tethered. Reviews are appreciated as well as criticisms.

Hierarchy is inescapable. It dictates natural and civilized society.

  
It works in a triangular structure from the bottom feeders to the ultimate leader. The bees have their queen. The wolves have their alpha. And the humans have their God. (Revelations 1:8- I am the Alpha and Omega.)  
Even as a new age dawned and half of mankind saw fit to cut their stifling ties to their false deity they were still controlled- by prime ministers and presidents and popes. Because it is human nature to be lead. To follow and to listen and take orders. Because without structure society would crumble. And structure means there are those at the top and there are those at the bottom.

  
Humans are not born equally- it is a bitter truth- you have the wealthy and the impoverished and the gap between the two can deflate but it will never close.

  
Mycroft Holmes knows this better than anyone. He was born into wealth- he has never wanted for anything material in his life because his family is at the top of the hierarchy. It has been utterly fascinating for him to watch his parents and their struggle for power- with each other in their loveless, convenient marriage or with their work.

  
It was his years at home, inspecting his world through a microscope, which left Mycroft what he is today- a cold being fuelled by pride and power.

  
Eighteen years old and already consumed by the thought that without power he has nothing.

  
He is Head Boy of St. Bartholomew’s Boarding School- it was an overly easy conquest, because Mycroft is clever and can manipulate as well as the devil can fiddle, but he sees it as good practice for when he’s running this country. For now he is content with being the top of the social hierarchy of this school- his school.

  
Every now and then he sees fit to assert his power over his peers- just so they know he is still their leader- and Mycroft has never been one for public affirmations- much more suited to being behind the scenes, a puppet master holding the strings as it were- but he will display his feathers when he needs too.

  
At the start of his final year at Bart’s, this is what Mycroft is thinking of, that it is time for another display. He already has the most desirable girl in school- all legs and no brain and when she touches Mycroft it makes his skin crawl but he tells himself it’s her idiocy that turns him off- which was his big flourish last year. But it’s time for something new.

  
What to do? What to do? Mycroft thinks mildly as he lounges in the courtyard one afternoon. As it happens, his answer strays across his path- looking lost and out of place.

  
A new boy.

  
“Who’s that?” Mycroft asks the girl hanging from his arm and she shrugs.

  
He is a pretty kind of creature with dark, intelligent eyes and in other circumstances Mycroft thought they could get along but right then he was just another pawn in this boring little game.

  
Sixteen year old Jim Moriarty, Mycroft has other people discover on his behalf, is on the scholarship programme that Bart’s runs so they might not look quite so elitist. So he’s poor- that much is obvious to Mycroft without the information. One look tells Mycroft that much. His uniform has been passed down once—no, twice judging by how many times it has been re-sewn. He is healthy enough now, but years of malnourishment have left him a few inches shorter than he should be. Because Mycroft is clever and can deduce even if he can’t be bothered sometimes. He doesn’t suit wealth- he looks uncomfortable surrounded by it and he doesn’t know how to be part of it. Like oil and water, he cannot mix.

  
No, Jim does not fit in and that makes him a perfect target.

  
The bullying starts of innocently enough- snide jokes when Jim is just in earshot and gentle trips in the hall. Mycroft is never the voice that taunts or the foot that trips but he is the one to give the demands. It’s nothing personal- nothing ever is with Mycroft- it is just business.

  
But as these things do, it escalates until Jim Moriarty is a segregated completely from everyone else. In a particularly cruel twist, someone leaves collection boxes around the school halls for the ‘Moriarty foundation’ so that poor Jim might get enough money to buy a decent pair of shoes. It’s abhorrent, and Mycroft doesn’t find it funny but he lets it happen and encourages more because this power he has over the sycophantic masses is his nourishment.

  
He never expected Jim would fight back- he expected he would leave the school or tell a teacher and Mycroft would skillfully pin the blame on someone else- but one miserable February afternoon Jim approaches Mycroft and his swarm with fight in his eyes.

  
He doesn't look scared. That throws Mycroft off. He looks defiant.

  
Still, Mycroft casts a sardonic look over the boy and leans forwards, head cocked.

  
“Oh look,” Mycroft pouts mockingly, “It’s little Jim. How can I help you?”  
______________

Jim Moriarty was clever. He was too clever for his social status granted in life and he hated it. When Saint Bartholomew’s Boarding School accepted him on a full scholarship, it was bittersweet. It proved that he was clever enough to take on anything, but he knew he wouldn't be accepted by the students.

 

And he was right. The torment started from day one. It started with the simple pauper jokes or the fake notes in his locker and slipped under the door of his room. Then it turned into more outward and physical mocking. Jim let it roll off his shoulders, never acting out or even giving more than a small reaction. He was better than that--above all of the mongrels that tortured him.

 

He knew who the ring leader of the bastards was, though--Mycroft Holmes. He was pompous and arrogant; impossibly rich and he knew it. More than that, he loved to flaunt it. But Jim could take anything Mycroft Holmes threw at him because he knew something about the arrogant prick that no one else did.

 

Jim was more than clever--he was brilliant. He had an eye for detail that no one could match or begin to rival and he could see right through the Holmes boy and see a truth that he himself probably didn't even know.

 

And then there were the charity boxes with his name on them. No. It was too much now. Mycroft Holmes was going to regret the day he ever decided to use Jim as a metaphorical punching bag. He marched right up to him--perfect, his friends were there. He knew he was going to get the piss kicked out of him for his insolence and he was glad. He was glad because he knew this would kill Mycroft inside and shatter his world. If only he knew then what it would cause.

 

Jim Moriarty stared defiantly into Mycroft's eyes and was un-phased by the domineering pose the boy, only two years his senior, took.

 

“It’s little Jim. How can I help you?” Jim couldn't wait to wipe the sneer off his angled face.

 

"So when are you going to tell that dumb bimbo that hangs off your arm that you're gay?" His voice is confident and mocking. Silence meets him as a hush runs down the hallway. Good, because he wants everyone to hear. "Oh, you thought no one would notice? The way your pupils dilate when you see an attractive male student, but recede the moment they set eyes on her? Or how about the way you carry yourself with your shoulders just a little too back and your hips just a little too forward. Or the way you put product in your hair or keep your eyebrows manicured just so?" Jim snickered. "Don't look so shocked, Mycroft...unless..." he feigns guilt, "Oh, goodness me...you didn't know? Sorry to be the one to break it to you." And then Jim turned on his heel, starting to walk away, knowing he wouldn't get far.


	2. Chapter Two

Prejudices are deeply rooted into this society, the society of the wealthy and privileged, and while Mycroft may have no problems with homosexuality himself, his world does. And for that reason alone he cannot be gay. Will not allow himself to be put at that disadvantage.

The little bastard. What does he think he’s doing? Gay. I’m not gay. My pupils don’t…. dilate. Do they? Just because I don’t like this girl doesn’t mean I don’t like any of them.

It takes Mycroft a few beats to gather his thoughts. A heavy, uncomfortable hush has fallen over his little crowd and Mycroft is forced to take a few deep breaths before his mind clears enough to respond.

"Get him." Mycroft says calmly and when no one responds- shaken by the public put down of their alpha- he tries a little louder, "Get. Him."

They - two mindless puppets- have him pinned to a wall by his shoulders in seconds. Placing his hands on Jim's shoulders, Mycroft thinks about bringing a sharp knee up into the boys groin but decides better on such a display in front of so many witnesses- it would only show that he was affected by the words and add weight to them, and theywere not true. Of that Mycroft was intent. Instead he dips his head to Jim's height and sighs, in a voice dripping in malice and just quiet enough for only the two of them to hear, "I'll see you tonight, Moriarty."

"What do you want us to do with him?" One of the boys holding him asks as Mycroft turns on his heels.

"I don't care.” He responds and walks away, the click of his footsteps drowning out the sound of Jim doubling over in pain as the first fist connects with his stomach.

Little Jim is more devious than Mycroft anticipated- he sorely underestimated the boy.

Mycroft’s empire is like glass and Jim’s clever words were a carefully placed crack- a crack of doubt that has the possibility to spread throughout the system until it shatters. Yes the damage he caused is extensive… but not irreparable.

The problem with school, Mycroft has found, is that it is full of teenagers. They are dense and fickle- moving as the tide of gossip dictates. Which works for him most of the time but not today, when Mycroft Holmes' sexuality is on everyone's lips.

"Did you hear about….”

“Can you believe that…”

It sweeps through the school like wild fire- burning Mycroft’s name within hours and he realises he can’t just wait for the next tide to roll into the shore and take this away- he’ll have to push it back himself. Three hours is his aim; to fix it before the day is out.

He starts with the hens- the gossiping girls- and their incessant clucking. This one is easy. Mycroft simply pulls that pretty girl he owns into an empty classroom and shows her that he isn’t gay against a wall until she’s completely sure of the fact – even if he isn’t and he has to think of anything but what he’s doing until it’s over. He lets her do the rest of the work as she has influence amongst the fairer sex and she will cease their skepticism.

The boys are a little harder to sway. Dim-witted, slow creatures that they are they don’t pick up on Mycroft’s subtle swaying- his bragging of conquests. He is forced to be blunt. He supposes that this plays into his strength- or his weakness rather. People assume pride is Mycroft’s greatest weakness but years of living in a loveless household have left him unable to deal with emotions and Mycroft knows that from this his downfall comes in his inability to cope with feelings. The fact that at any moment he might just snap. This is exactly what he does- he gets angry and in his outrage he coerces the final doubters back to his side.

That was too easy. Boring, almost. When little Jim had uttered those words with that confident air he had actually been a little excited that someone had started a new game. But maybe Jim wasn’t playing the same game as Mycroft at all, after all he had succeeded in making Mycroft doubt himself. A rare feat.

No, he still has to face Jim and put him in his place.

That night he does his rounds of the boys dormitories, as is head boy duty, but instead of going back to his room he circles back to find Jim Moriarty’s which is more like a supply cupboard than a bedroom.  
He enters silently, not entirely sure what he is going to do here, and closes the door behind him.

“Sorry for the late night call, Jim.” Mycroft says in an exaggerated whisper, “I just thought we should have a few words.”

There’s a key in the door and it occurs to Mycroft that Jim could have locked it to keep him out- was it brave or foolish that he didn’t? Jim lies in bed, not even feigning sleep but not quivering as most would be under the circumstances; Mycroft admires him, just a little, for that.

He perches himself on the edge of Jim’s bed with an air of false camaraderie but he is very careful to sit across Jim’s legs, pinning him to the bed.

“I just wanted to warn you that life is going to get a little harder for you now.” Mycroft tilts his head and appraises his junior with a cool gaze, “It’s nothing personal.” Well, it is now. “I just can’t let people think that I’m going to let you get away with that- not that it even made a dent- I need to make an example of you.”

“You understand, don’t you Jim? It’s just business.” Mycroft pats Jim’s leg over the duvet and it is the perfect note on which to leave- but he doesn’t.

He doesn’t know what possess him, he should leave- his mind is telling him to just leave already before Jim uses that silver tongue to rouse Mycroft’s temper- but he leans forwards and says, “That was clever what you did today but-- I’m not gay.” 

* * *  
He knew he wouldn't make it far, though he finds some sick satisfaction that they don't obey him on his first command. And then there's the concrete biting into his skull. Jim keeps his face a stone mask, defiance never leaving his face. Two brutes are pinning him to the wall, fingers pressing into his flesh that will probably bruise later, but that doesn't matter now. No, what matters is Mycroft Holmes leaning down to stare into his eyes and he can see a war in there between beating Jim into nothing and using words. Of course he chooses the latter--he and Mycroft are similar animals using words as their teeth instead of their brute strength. 

I'll see you tonight, Moriarty. Oh Jim wants to shiver at the positive hatred, but he keeps himself still, focusing on the pain in his arms so that he does not give Mycroft the benefit of a reaction. He doesn't listen to the rest of the words that exchange between the puppet master and his toys because he knows their going to turn on him with dead eyes--converging and attacking. 

The first fist collides with his gut and he can't help but choke. Another fist comes across his cheek and Jim is seeing stars and tasting copper and iron tainting his mouth and staining his teeth. Several more blows to his core later and Jim was sagged against the wall, held up only by the brutes as if he were nailed to the wall. A cough racked through him and he spit blood out into one of the brute's faces. Stupid? Yes. But despite the pain that racked through his frame, physical pain would fade eventually. 

There is a break in the abuse and he know's it's just about over. One of his eyes is blackened and swollen so that it is just a crescent, his lip is split, his ribs are bruised and aching, and there is blood oozing slow and dark from his nose. The hands release him and he crumples to the floor, relishing the cool tile against his searing, split, cheek. The boys walk away, unseen. He knows that a tutor likely saw them, but he also knew they wouldn't bother to step in for him. These boys come from powerful families and standing against them would likely cost them their jobs. 

Jim drags himself to the nurses office where they reset his nose and bandage his face. The ice against his eyes stings and God in heaven it hurt to breathe. But it was over, now, until tonight. No, tonight was going to be the real punishment. 

And it was with that thought in mind that Jim didn't lock the door before he lay down. Sleeping was pointless--Mycroft was not going to have the satisfaction of seeing Jim startle awake. And so he lay there, counting his breaths and waiting until--

\--the door crept open and now Jim had to steel himself. 

“Sorry for the late night call, Jim.” Liar. Breathe in, one. Breathe out, one.

“I just thought we should have a few words.” More like you should have a few words. Breathe in, two. Breathe out, two.

His legs are pinned--no where to run. Jim was ever so good at running, but now was the time for standing, or rather laying--and he feels weak and vulnerable. He denies it though, because nothing Mycroft could or would do will break him and Jim is certain of that.

“I just wanted to warn you that life is going to get a little harder for you now. It’s nothing personal. I just can’t let people think that I’m going to let you get away with that- not that it even made a dent- I need to make an example of you.” Jim keeps his lips silent and his eyes calm, as if this were all a dream and Jim knew better than to be afraid of the dastardly puppet master trying to string him up by his neck. 

“You understand, don’t you Jim? It’s just business.” The business of control and hierarchy The pat on his leg signifies that this is over. Just a threat? That was...oddly lenient. 

“That was clever what you did today but-- I’m not gay.” Oh. Oh, Mycroft that was the worst move you could have made. He tried to tie the string around Jim's neck, but Jim was faster with his hand up by his eye, blocking him with defiant confidence. 

"And who is it that you're trying to convince," Jim asks, voice smooth as silk and cold as ice, "You or me?" He lays there because there is nothing else he can do. Just to lie and wait and try to fight against the marionette as it tries to whip down and catch him.

* * *  
He should have left when he had the chance.

His pride will not allow Jim to have the last word, and Jim knows it. – Clever, clever thing.

It’s dark in the room, Mycroft not bothering to turn the light on as he came in, but he can still see Jim’s wounds shining through the blackness. The purple eye and the split cheek somehow make him look prettier, like a canvas all decorated with war colours,- the damage suits him just as much as wealth does not- and suddenly Mycroft is imagining digging his nails into any untarnished flesh left on that face. Imagining drawing bruised lips violently up to his own and--

“You. I’m trying to convince you.” Liar. “You’re the one who seems so sure.”

He pulls his tie a little looser from around his neck because it suddenly feels like noose; air stifling in Jim’s little cupboard of a bedroom. 

I’m not gay. Mycroft tells himself but the plead falls flat even to his own ears which are so desperate to believe the words. 

"I suppose it doesn't really matter what you think. Just as long as your thoughts don't become public again. Will you promise me that, Jim? Or am I going to have to assure your silence?" There is threat laced in his voice that he doesn't mean to be there. 

Physical dominance isn't Mycroft's preferred method- he was much more comfortable tugging the string and making someone else's hand throw the punch than doing it himself- but he doesn't see what harm it could do right now- other than to Jim. Who was little Jim going to tell really, if Mycroft held him down and -- 

Mycroft grits his teeth and shakes the thought from his skin. Though his fingers have curled in the sheets of Jim's bed. He can hardly believe what his thinking, Mycroft is a cold kind of creature- made of ice or stone or something fundamentally unlovable- but he was no monster. 

Or was he? 

Desire was not his forte, he had really never experienced it before. There was no way of knowing what he was capable of when pushed.   
* * *  
“You. I’m trying to convince you. You’re the one who seems so sure.” Mycroft's words were too perfect. The more he tried to deny it, the more true it was. On that fact, Jim was going to make sure Mycroft was certain. 

He listened. Jim listened to the threat sharp enough to slice right through Jim's pale skin and he could have sworn he felt it marking an 'x' into his chest. If he had any typical self-preservation, he would have nodded and submitted. Mycroft was healthier, two years his senior, and immensely powerful socially in a way that, if he manipulated his power correctly, could destroy Jim with a word. 

But Jim didn't have self-preservation instincts. He just had a drive to prove himself and an unnatural taste for danger that he kept as his own private secret. Danger was his drug and he'd gone a long time without indulging.

Fear and self-preservation are different. While the latter can be repressed and ignored, fear...fear was an entirely different animal. Jim Moriarty was not devoid of fear and though he kept it well buried, he could feel it pound through his veins and constrict its icy tendrils around his heart. Mycroft had made his move and Jim had to make his choice: submit to the painful fear in his blood, or rebel and face whatever hell Mycroft dealt to him.

Well, there was really no choice in the end.

"And in that you prove my point." Jim didn't bother hiding the wince as he pushed himself up as close as he could get to a sitting position with Mycroft pinioning his legs like that. All the support he has is in his arms, and even those aren't strong after the stress that the puppet master's toys put on his body. Jim was never the healthiest of kids and his impoverished roots did nothing to improve them. If Jim was anything, though, he was stubborn and pushed himself far beyond what was healthy or even safe for his own body. 

"If you had just left, that would have been the most you could have done to defend your case, though I'll always know the truth. But you had to push it and say it out loud. You had to hear the confirmation as a reminder of the lie you tell yourself every day."

Jim gave a pause before he drove the nail into his own coffin. "Nothing...nothing you do will assure my silence, Mycroft Holmes, and it's everything you deserve. Because you were so determined to spread the truth about how dirt fucking broke I am and how 'unworthy' I am of being in the presence of the other St. Bart's students, everyone will know the truth about the one thing you want no one to know about. You deserve to feel that pain." Jim was breathing hard from anger and adrenaline and pain, but he smiled wider for it because he was better than to let it stop him now.


	3. Chapter Three

_Everyone will know the truth about the one thing you want no one to know about._

 

In court, when murders or rapists or perpetrators of some violent act have no more defence- cannot plead innocence or insanity- they often turn to one last excuse. They just couldn't _control_ themselves. Fury overtook their bodies until they were beating the crap out of some poor soul. They say rage is like a white hot flash that leaves you a slave to your fists. 

 

_What a load of shit._ Mycroft Holmes thinks somewhere in the back of that never ceasing mind. 

 

When Mycroft snaps, he's surprised at how clean the break feels. He doesn't feel splintered or as if a wave has just come crashing down on his head. It's like a clap of thunder inside of him or a spring the Jim had slowly been tightening finally being released. One clean, precise, _snap_. 

 

He is acutely aware of every single move he makes next, as if he is reading it from a text book, following instructions:

 

Step one: Wrap fingers around Jim's wrists and _pull_.

 

He falls back onto the bed, like a marionette that's just had every string cut, in a flail of limbs and snapping head. 

 

Step two: Bring legs onto bed. Kneel on Jim's thighs. Apply weight. 

 

Mycroft leans over Jim so they are nose to nose and he casts a shadow over that already blackened face. One hand is wrapped in the collar of Jim's shirt and he is so aware of what he's doing that Mycroft thinks he could probably count the threads of cotton between thumb and forefinger. And yet this is still anger- with a rational mind Mycroft would have already fled the room.

 

Step three: Sneer.

 

"Maybe I do deserve to feel that pain, Jim." Mycroft says and it is astounding how steady his voice sounds when his entire frame is shuddering.

 

Step four: Draw hand back. Curl fingers into fist. 

 

"But you won't tell anyone what you think you know- if it means that I have to knock every tooth out of that clever mouth to stop you from talking." 

 

Step five: Throw fist forward. Hit. Draw back. And repeat. 

 

Mycroft falters. He knows what he should do now but his hand won't go, repelled by some unseen force. Mycroft thinks he could paint such wonderful pictures on Jim's skin with his knuckles if he would just _move_. 

 

His hysteria is dying and Mycroft was already aware of what he was doing but now he conscience is rearing it's judgmental head and making him see what's wrong with this scene. He has a boy half his size and two years his junior pinned to a bed, a fist raised with the intention of shattering his face. 

 

Dropping his hand, Mycroft moves it instead to curl his fingers through Jim's hair, yanking his head back violently and exposing the alabaster flesh of his neck --

 

 and oh he is a pretty thing

 

\-- The sight of his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat as he struggles for air stirs something in Mycroft that he is loath to acknowledge as lust. 

 

  _Lie to others, not to yourself_ Mycroft hums and anyway, what damage could it do to admit it now?

 

"Well there's no point in kidding myself is there." Mycroft says to Jim beneath him, "I'm going to do something now, Jim, and I don't think you're going to like it very much." he's talking to him with deliberate, slow patronising words, "And if it doesn't break you and stop you from exposing me- well, then at least I'll have a bit of fun before the flames." 

 

And with that he crushes his lips to Jim's. 

 

It is suffocating and, as Mycroft forces Jim's mouth open, he can taste the sin on his own tongue when it strokes against Jim's in an ugly act of taking. Stealing. 

 

How he fucking hates Jim Moriarty in that moment for making him _this_. 

*          *          *

Jim hisses painfully as his back and bruised ribs recoil at the jerking motion that sends him onto his back. Everything is a blur and that fear that was coursing through his blood is pounding in his ears. Jim is helpless... _helpless..._ and completely at Mycroft's mercy. He refuses to show it, though, as he counts his breathing. He doesn't make it past two when he sees the fist fly back. He can't help it; Jim closes his eyes, bracing himself against the bed because he knows the shot is going to re-break his nose, or dislocate his jaw. And then the punch doesn't come.

 

But a wrenching feeling at his neck does because suddenly Mycroft's hand is in his hair and Jim's heart is beating like a hummingbird. A small part of him wonders that if it stops, will he actually become just another wooden puppet?

 

_"I'm going to do something now, Jim, and I don't think you're going to like it very much."_  W-What? What could he do that would be worse than a blow to the face? Jim opens his mouth to ask and retort and then he feels something on it like a suction and there's something exploring his mouth. It takes Jim a moment too long to realize that Mycroft was kissing him--though kissing sounded too sweet for what Mycroft was doing. Mycroft was taking and stealing. There went Jim's first kiss--not that Jim cared much for such things anyway--but now Mycroft had that too. And then a pit of fear welled in his stomach as he realized what else Mycroft could take here and now if he wanted to.

 

He could...but would he? Jim wondered if he stayed frozen that maybe Mycroft would think he was no fun and leave. He wondered with little hope.

 

*          *          *

 

Mycroft’s first kiss- his first  _real_ kiss- was with a boy.

Henry Galviner.

Mycroft was thirteen but Henry was sixteen and Mycroft idolised him because he was beautiful. All dark skin and warm eyes. He had asked Mycroft if he’d ever been kissed before and always the proud fool Mycroft nodded.  _Liar_ Henry had chuckled,  _But- I can show you if you like?_ And Mycroft let Henry show him what it is to be kissed. He tasted sweet, like the tea he always drank, and he felt like rain—hard and cool and clean. His lips ceased Mycroft’s trembling, his tongue soothed Mycroft’s whimpers. And it was terrifying but the only time Mycroft has ever been truly content- even if he never allowed himself to think about it again.

That was nothing like this. This; the only other time Mycroft has kissed (if you can call this a kiss) a boy. That was like a soft flame licking his skin, warming gently. This is like a raging fire, scorching his lips- leaving them numb- and burning with a thick black smoke—Mycroft’s soul exposed.

This is  _ugly._ Hideous.

Mycroft’s tongue works in Jim’s mouth roughly, tasting nothing but his own immorality in the hot cavern. And it is as if he is trying to suck the air from Jim’s lungs with his lips. Suffocating.

There is a sore absence of  _fight_  here. Jim’s arms lie limply at his sides not attempting to push Mycroft from him. The surprise he feels at this does not stop Mycroft. He doesn’t care if Jim won’t fight back- however fun he thinks it might be to pin the boy’s hand above his head. Mycroft isn’t doing this for fun. His body, from crown to sole, may be charged with adrenaline- trousers uncomfortably tight and pulse beating hard and fast in  _every_ part of him- but his mind is void. Oh, he is perfectly conscious of his actions he just feels… nothing. Mind and body working separately.

Briefly Mycroft breaks contact with Jim’s mouth to come up for air, rasping and sucking it desperately through his teeth because he is  _drowning._ Losing himself to whatever this is. To his hate and his lust.

Fingers move from Jim’s neck and he pushes Jim’s shirt up his body, bunching it at his chest.

_You have to stop._

Knuckles graze over his ribs.

_No. Stop this._

Bringing his mouth down again his teeth catch Jim’s bottom lip and sink into the flesh.

_STOP._

And he does this time. Because he can taste a metallic tang on his tongue. So far he had not tasted anything, not really even felt what was happening on his skin but Jim’s blood now is overpowering. He doesn’t know if he caused the blood or if Jim’s lip was already split but either way he knows that this is no better than driving his fists into the boy’s face.

Mycroft let’s his fingers fan out on Jim’s chest, feeling for his heartbeat through damaged skin. Counting the frantic thump to try and clear his head. It’s not working. He wants to sink his teeth deeper into Jim, everywhere and anywhere. He wants to break skin and drink blood.

But his logical mind won’t allow his primitive body to push on. And his body won’t allow him to leave.

“Please just…” Mycroft growls against Jim’s lips. 

But just  _what_ exactly? Forgive me? No. He cannot apologise because he is not sorry. Mycroft Holmes does not do remorse, how could he being what he is, especially concerning someone he hates as fiercely as Jim.

_Please just._ Forget this? Leave me alone? Spare my secret? A tall order considering what he is half way through doing.

_Please. Just._

Release me?

Yes, that’s it. Struggle, scream, fight. Anything. Just respond and let me go. Go from this room, free of your skin or convince me to continue so I might destroy you.

*          *          *

 

Under stress, Jim's mind works in a pattern. First, it shuts down and falls silent, leaving Jim to float in a void of ambiguity. The object of his distress looms around him and he's numb to it--pure dead weight and unseeing eyes. The world comes to a dead stop.

 

And then it switches back on and time picks up double speed and everything is hypersensitive. Every point where Mycroft's body meets Jim's is like being pressed into a flame. Every bruise, cut, or break in his body is singing a dissonant melody that makes him want to cover his ears. Every breath that Jim tries to take in feels arid and painful as if it's poisonous gas burning his lungs from the inside out. 

 

As Jim was catching up with his mind in double-speed, he's faintly aware that the lips that had impaled themselves upon him are levitating just above his own as he feels blood drip down his chin. He thanks god for the darkness that will hopefully shroud the fear that he detests to admit is lurking behind his eyes. It's true--Jim is terrified because he's almost certain that Mycroft is going to take him and any dignity he has left. Why shouldn't he? He's taken everything else. Jim closes his eyes as he resigns himself to this fate. There was nothing Jim could do to stop the man on top of him--he's bigger, stronger, and fueled by anger. To make matters worse, Jim was already at a disadvantage thanks to the mindless puppets from earlier. He knows Mycroft can see the bruises on his ribs where he pushed up Jim's shirt. Jim should feel shame and humiliation, but that won't change anything.

 

No, nothing he did now would change what was coming for him. He had two choices--cower and beg for mercy and maybe it would be short and quick, or defend himself to the end and defend the little shredded fabric of dignity he had left. The latter would hurt. The latter will probably leave him scarred forever, whereas one day, he'd be able to forget the consequences of the former as an unfortunate occurrence. Jim knows what any normal person would do, but he had a point to prove, and he wasn't going to relinquish it. 

 

_"Please just..."_  Just what? Please just what? Jim couldn't begin to comprehend and he didn't fucking care to at this point. He let his fear exchange itself for anger and hate because he has never hated a person more than this in his entire life. 

 

"Please just what, Mycroft? Please just keep my secret? Please just don't tell everyone I secretly want it up the arse? Please just  _what_ , Mycroft?" Jim scoffed to himself, ignoring the jolt in his ribs. "You know what? I don't care. Whatever you ask, the answer is no. I will not  _just do_ something for you, you stupid fuck. When are you going to learn that you don't scare me?"  _Liar._  "Nothing you do to me will make an ounce of difference."  _Unless you consider emotional trauma something worth noting._  "Do your fucking worst, Mycroft Holmes."  _Because there is little else but this that you could possibly take from me at this point. You took my pride when you insulted my roots. You took my health every time you ordered your puppets to jump me after classes. You took my first kiss. So what's the difference if you take my virginity? It's just a word. It's just an idea. It doesn't even matter._ Liar.

 


	4. Chapter Four

His words condemn him.

 

_"When are you going to learn that you don't scare me?"_

_  
_

_Liar._ Mycroft thinks. Jim is clever and it would be idiotic not to be scared of the person who could shatter you completely.

 

Abruptly, Mycroft pulls himself from Jim's body and falls back onto his knees on the other end of the bed, freeing Jim's legs. Now is the time to run; whilst Mycroft is giving him the chance. Wiping the back of his hand across his mouth he smears Jim's blood across his skin. It stings, like acid- because its implications are corrosive-, but it's crimson like Mycroft's own blood. Like anyone else's.

 

This somehow moves Mycroft to anger.

 

"You know, I don't even care that you're so fucking poor. I mean, you could be me if you were given the same advantages in life." Mycroft hums calmly- because his words don't really matter anymore, just their inflection; the deliberate languidness of them and the resentment that simmers just beneath the surface- as he kicks off his shoes and socks, "And we probably could have sorted this out, you and I," he gestures lazily between them as his hands move to undo his tie an pull it off, "But you- you just _had_ to show me up. You're still trying to do it now," he shakes his head and smiles grimly, "And I thought you were clever." Fingers begin to pull open the buttons of his shirt, agonisingly slowly, and he hopes Jim's sees what is happening, "You knew what would happen if you pushed me, you must have. How could you not, after all you know I... "want it up the arse" as you so eloquently put it." Mycroft is finished with his shirt and he peels it off, folding it with studious neatness and laying to one side of the bed. And there are just his trousers left. He stands for this because his stature is threatening, domineering as he manages to cast a shadow over Jim even in this darkness, "Why did you push me, Jim, unless you _wanted_ this to happen." He undoes the button of his trousers, "A masochist?" Pulls down the zip, the metallic sound is deafening in the silence, "Don't worry," Slides the trousers over his thighs and steps out of the pool of fabric at his feet, "I can help you with that."

 

It's funny because he feels _sick_ , like he might retch and empty the contents of his stomach on Jim's bedroom floor, but his body's excitement is all too evident by the strain at the front of his briefs. Mycroft has never cared for _size_ but even he knows he is impressive in that sense- _all the better to maim you with my dear._

 

"You can still run. Scream. I won't think you're weak, promise." Mycroft pouts but he's already climbed over Jim's body, knees on either side of his waist and hands on either side of his head, pinning him the bed.

 

Placing a finger under Jim's chin Mycroft tilts his head back gently to expose the pretty flesh of his throat and presses a soft kiss to this skin there just so he can feel the pulse. Oh his heart is _racing_. How glorious. Suddenly, without warning, Mycroft sinks his teeth into Jim's throat. Hard and with tongue darting out to lick slowly. His skin tastes like fear; it is stomach turning and thrilling at the same time.

 

Mycroft wants to mark Jim's skin- he wants to make Jim his with lips and teeth and sweat and blood.

 

And he will, even if doing so stains his soul. Even if it destroys them both in the process.

*          *          *

Mycroft’s words are poisonous and there’s never been any doubt in Jim’s mind about that. He was brilliant with his words and skilled at making them roll off his tongue with such grace and disgust that Jim felt his skin crawling. Now it began.

 

Jim watched as each article of clothing slowly came off, piece by fucking piece with the air of ease, though the threat was laced perfectly into each flick of his finger against a button or jolt of his wrist against a tie. It was not hard to imagine those fingers closing around his throat or his wrist jerking him— _NO._ Jim shook his head—what the fuck was wrong with him?

 

Oh, but fear was slinky and climbing; diving in and out of his pores with liquid grace, stitching gooseflesh up his skin.

 

_“You can still run. Scream. I won’t think you’re weak. Promise.”_ Liar. But it wouldn’t just be Mycroft who thought it—Jim would too. Jim would hate himself _more_ for running like a fucking coward than for staying and facing his own personal hell as it desecrated him. No. Jim would face this terror head on.

 

Jim stares up at Mycroft, trembling just slightly, but the tremor never reaches his voice—Jim would die before Mycroft heard fear in his _voice_. His voice was his only weapon against Mycroft and that would have to be strong to make this whole thing bearable.

 

_If you can’t beat them, join them._ The phrase was such a pathetic cliché, but ever so accurate. If Mycroft was going to take this from him, Jim was going to do everything in his power to demean his victory. He would kiss back, and let out mocking moans as Mycroft took him—anything to take away from the power Mycroft was wielding against him. There was strength in submission and Jim was going to exploit that as much as he physically could.

 

Jim moves his chin back with Mycroft’s dagger-finger with ease, a smirk playing across his lips despite the way his heart aches and thuds painfully in his chest. And then the teeth sink in Jim’s neck and there is no going back. His back arches into Mycroft, letting out a quiet keen. He knew the sound would throw Mycroft. _Good._

_  
_

“Why would I ever run and scream from someone as pathetic as you?”

*          *          *

The response stalls Mycroft- the soft whine and the arched spine. And it is so obviously a wicked move in their game of dominance and submission but it still throws him. 

 

_“Why would I ever run and scream from someone as pathetic as you?”_

 

“Why would you ever let someone as  _pathetic_ as me do this to you,” He growls in turn- though the tone lacks its usual conviction because Jim is still arching into him- and presses his lips to Jim’s not afraid this time to nick at the flesh with hungry teeth and draw blood.

 

Mycroft hates the way he kisses back now.

 

Hates the sensation of his tongue running along his teeth. Hot and wet and delicious.

 

Hates how every movement he makes Mycroft sweat a little more. How he finds his skin so stimulating, body reacting uncontrollably.

 

Hates  _him._ Jim Moriarty is scum and Mycroft wants to make him feel that way.

 

Breaking the kiss and tugging Jim’s shirt over his head he is dismayed to find the boy helping him eagerly

 

 -  _Stop it. Just stop pretending to enjoy his. I am taking everything from you. Stop. Be scared.-_

 

So when it is off Mycroft catches Jim’s writs in one hand to hold them above his head. He just doesn’t want Jim to touch him, to entice some kind of reaction that he has not chosen to release—dominance has never felt so weak.

 

As he runs his free hand over Jim's chest, fingertips carefully applying pressure to any bruised flesh because Jim's involuntary hisses make this so much easier, Mycroft realises he is trembling. And it is not just because of the way Jim’s skin sears him - he feels like he is falling apart at the seams, and he can't decide if it's fear or arousal or both.

 

Never beyond gentle kisses and gentle fingers. He misses Henry, suddenly; his first taste of the same sex. Mycroft supposes Jim will be another kind of first. A worse kind. It occurs to Mycroft that he will probably be a first for Jim, in any sense of the word. Taking this from him promises to stain Mycroft’s soul- if it is not already blackened- but if he feels any guilt he does not acknowledge it.

 

Because this is the perfect ammunition.

 

“Jim, I never even considered that this might be your first time. How rude of me.” Mycroft smirks darkly and he captures Jim’s lips briefly before pulling away to sigh, “I’ll be gentle. I swear.”

 

And as if to disprove his point he boldly sinks a hand beneath the waistband of Jim’s trousers, not hesitating in wrapping his fingers around the base of Jim’s cock- heart faltering just a little in his chest because he has never held a man like this and it is  _terrifying_ \- because foreplay is for lovers and couples and Jim is not Mycroft’s paramour- his is his puppet to burn.

 

Mycroft wants Jim to keen falsely at his touch and give him an excuse to cause pain or he wants the sound Jim makes to be _real_ \- conflicted and aroused- so he can begin to move his hand and watch Jim betray himself. Either way it will be a minor victory.

 

At the same time as this, Mycroft releases Jim’s wrist so he might curl his fingers around his throat, in a mirror image of what is happening south of here, and press the pad of his thumb to the windpipe and just  _press._

*          *          *

Jim had read a lot of poetry in his spare time. It was a secret passion he had, and he had privately dreamed that when he lost his virtue, it would be as lyrical and poetic as all of the limericks he’s read. Each touch is a piece of imagery that spawns a sputter in the other’s heart at the emotion it renders as they touch to extend the metaphor. Each moan is mirrored and rhyming perfectly with its partners as the words scribe themselves on the pages of the lover’s flesh.

 

What Jim didn’t expect is that the poem of _his_ first time would be a broken one—the quill broken and leaking crimson ink over the parchment. The tones of moans are dissonant and ill-timed.

 

This moment was the bard stared at his work in progress and wondered why something that was meant to flow so beautifully became so terribly un-metered. The original flow of the iambic has become trochaic and wrong, leaving awkward pauses and un-due stresses.

 

Jim feels disgusting as he _helps_ Mycroft remove his shirt, his thin sheet of armour, leaving him bare and exposed and he shivers at the cool air mixing with the scalding heat from Mycroft’s chest. His mouth already feels poisoned where he’s forced himself to let Mycroft explore with a forked tongue.

 

And then Mycroft has stolen his hands away, two of his tools. Their simple, de-railed, poem has transformed into an epic and Jim begins to wonder which character he is. Maybe it is a new breed of story-poems that cannot be defined. In the corner of his mind, he sees himself, strings hanging from all of his joints where he has cut them away from the puppet master and his skin bleeds where they have been sewn in. The puppet master lurks over him, an ever present shadow and slowly plucks at each one, limiting what the hero can do to free himself. And maybe it would be easier to let the hero fail. Maybe his entire life he was destined to be a marionette, passed from puppeteer to puppeteer as his epic poem winds on, shifting styles and rhyme schemes, undeserving of an editor’s pen to relieve some of his pain.

 

Maybe it was easier to allow that to happen, but Jim was never good at doing whatever made his life easier. Every press into his tender flesh makes Jim wince, unbidden and unwelcome, and he feels the yank of the skin against the invisible strings Mycroft holds.

 

_Jim, I never even considered that this might be your first time. How rude of me. I’ll be gentle. I swear._

 

Jim knows there is hurt etched in his eyes and so he closes them, because he wasn’t going to share it. If hurt was the last thing he had, he would cherish it and keep it close. And then there was a white hot grip around his member and his eyes sputtered open and choked fear rips audibly from his throat. His instinct prepares a yelp, but Mycroft has silenced it with a hand on his throat, thumb pressing into the ridges of his trachea and leaving him mute. The puppet master had his victim cornered and was sewing the string into his throat with just a touch.  Jim feels his body stiffen against his will, but _no,_ he wasn’t going to let Mycroft have the satisfaction. Despite how his hands shook to grab Mycroft’s hand off of his throat, he forces them up and twines his fingers in the puppeteer’s hair.

 

He was going to grab the quill from the poet’s hands and write it himself, despite his crude skills. Jim tugs Mycroft down so that his lips are next to his ear.

 

“Oooh,” he tries to mock, though his voice is hoarse and forced out from beneath Mycroft’s powerful thumb. “How original. If you’re trying to hurt me, give up. Because I can take whatever you throw at me and then some, Mycroft Holmes.”

 

Jim said he would write his own poem, but that didn’t mean it would be an honest one.


	5. Chapter Five

His fear is palpable.

 

Choking, desperate  _fear_. And it burns Mycroft that fear, though he does not understand why, and forces him to withdraw his hand from Jim’s member though the boy has already pulled the other from his neck.

 

_If you’re trying to hurt me, give up. Because I can take whatever you throw at me and then some, Mycroft Holmes._

 

Mycroft yanks his head back, out of Jim’s grasp, away from his mocking lips.

 

“Why are you  _taunting_ me?” He asks, genuine disbelief laced in his voice, “I can see your fear, Jim, you disguise it so poorly. I have given you the chance to run. Are you that stubborn that you would rather let me  _fuck_ you then lose to me? Oh God, you are, aren’t you. And you call me pathetic.”

 

But Mycroft  _is_ pathetic. He is weak and disgusting. If he was a better man- though he is hardly a man at all- then he would walk away and show Jim he is stronger than this. But his isn’t.

 

This is their catch 22.

 

Mycroft would rather become a monster and Jim would rather give up his body before either ran away. Because running is weak. But so is this  _act._

 

Whatever Mycroft does now is losing. So he just… switches off. He doesn’t want to feel what he is going to do next so he recedes into himself. And he’s good at this; being empty. An entire childhood worth of abandonment issues work in his favour now because Mycroft Holmes knows how to be destitute.

 

Mycroft sits back on his heels and with heavy hands flips Jim onto his stomach- because he doesn’t want to see his face during this. And he’s sitting between Jim’s legs and watching his shaking form, face in the pillow, with empty and eyes and he  _forces_ himself to see this for what it is; rape.

 

 _Rape,_ Mycroft’s detached mind rattles off,  _is the unlawful act of compelling a person, through physical force or duress, to have sexual intercourse._

 

But then Jim pushes himself from the bed and raises his backside in the air; presenting himself to Mycroft. He is giving Mycroft himself, his virginity, just so that he cannot  _take_ it. So Mycroft cannot win. And is it still rape if it is given, even with resentment? And does it even really matter anymore? How is this unlawful when there seem to be no laws here, in their dark? 

 

He’s tangled in his own puppet’s strings, he put himself here and the only way to break free of these suffocating bonds is to cut them.

 

Mycroft kneels behind Jim and breathes heavily through his nose, like a bull seeing red.

 

Mycroft pulls Jim’s trousers down.

 

Nails scraping against thighs.

 

He rubs his clothed groin against Jim’s rear.

 

He pulls his own briefs off.

 

Erection springs free.

 

_Throbbing._

 

Positions himself at Jim’s entrance.

 

Hands move to Jim’s waist to brace him. Because- oh- this is going to hurt.

 

Jim leans into the touch.

 

And it’s disgusting.

 

This is disgusting.

 

But there’s no turning back.

 

A snarl rips from his throat.

 

_Vicious._

 

And he pushes forward.

 

_Hard._

 

_Tearing._

 

He is enveloped in Jim’s body.

 

_Tight._

 

_Hot._

 

_Suffocating._

 

He sinks further in.

 

And why is this so fucking glorious, being buried inside of him, and so repulsive at the same time?

 

He can’t hear anything for the blood pounding in his ears so if Jim is screaming or crying then it falls on deaf ears – Mycroft is glad of the fact because he thinks the sound might break him. He doesn’t even hear his own moan as it escapes from his lips.

*          *          *

Jim listens to Mycroft’s words with a sombre smile. It’s true, after all—everything he says is the absolute truth. Jim is pathetic for allowing this to happen. He was the willing victim, undeserving of pity, because he truly _did_ allow this to happen.

 

Jim watches with silent acceptance as Mycroft backs off of him and winces at the pain in his ribs as he’s flipped onto his stomach. Breathe in. Breathe out. Jim lifted his hips, fingers clenching the sheets underneath the pillow as he buries his flushed face. He feels the fabric wrenched down and he feels the gooseflesh rise on his back.

 

The brush of fabric against his backside—the physical tease of a threat—makes him half-whimper into the pillow, but he doesn’t think Mycroft can hear.

 

And then he’s swallowed by an inferno. A strangled cry is ripped from Jim’s throat into the pillow and his eyes sting behind his lids as he sees stars. He feels as if he’s been plunged in to boiling water and heaves for air and receiving none.

 

Each slow thrust presses him firmly underwater and he can’t stop himself from whimpering. In _heave_ , out _heave_.

 

Jim has no idea how long it lasts before…

 

…before the burning starts to recede.

 

The first push that is more pleasure than pain terrifies Jim more than any act of abuse Mycroft could throw at him. He takes his first breath of real air instead of water and it shocks him. He couldn’t take pleasure in this—no that was more revolting and pathetic than Jim refusing to run.

 

The next thrust holds even more pleasure for him and Jim finds he can’t stop the small moan that leaks onto the pillow. He must be going crazy, right? Rape…there’s not supposed to be pleasure in chaos.

 

A few later and Jim realized that he himself was fully hard…but no that can’t be right. Oh god this was more humiliating than being face down, bum up to Mycroft fucking Holmes.

 

Jim’s instincts slowly start to take over as his quiet moans become more frequent and harder to muffle by the pillow. His hips angle themselves in the older man’s firm grip and his shoulders roll back. His spine dips and shudders.

 

And then Mycroft brushes against a spot that makes Jim see white as a loud groan fills the room, face leaving the pillow as his head is thrown back. His face is red and oh god Jim just wants to die of shame.

 

This was not a part of the plan.

*          *          *

This was not part of the plan. 

 

The plan was simple; pull out, push in, repeat, grit teeth, try not to moan and release. 

 

Like broken poetry with iambic pentameter, moving with Mycroft's frantic pulse. 

 

It was going well at first. 

 

Pull out. (hard)

 

Push in. (harder)

 

Try not to moan. (fail- because fuck does Jim feel glorious around him) 

 

Pull out. 

 

Push in

 

\-- and then there is a sound that Mycroft does not register as his own voice. It’s softer and muffled and it can only be one other. 

 

He thinks he must be lying to himself at first- delusions to make this easier, more acceptable- because there is no way- _no way_ that sound could have come from the boy he is thrusting into. 

 

Pull out. 

 

Push in. 

 

\-- and there it is again. Louder this time. Strangled and ashamed but full of _pleasure_ \- And accompanied by a shudder - The sound fills the darkness and washes over Mycroft, stalling his movements marginally. 

 

Jim is aroused. 

 

This is even more repulsive than before somehow. Because they are both finding thrill in the anarchy of their bodies. Pleasure in pain. And Mycroft cannot decide if he should count Jim's moans as a victory or a defeat. 

 

Maybe their drawing. Stale mate. 

 

Jim is angling his hips, backing into Mycroft and begging for more with his body and he grants it because this is fascinating. Leaning over Jim's body, Mycroft feels himself sinking deeper into tight heat until he can go no further. And this feels something akin to falling, he cannot catch his breath and he knows when he hits the ground it will be a spectacular display. 

 

Sweat is rolling from his skin now, dripping from him and rolling intrepidly across the planes of Jim's back and he does not know what possess him but Mycroft sinks his teeth into the flesh of Jim's shoulders so he can run his tongue, hot and flat, across the skin there. Their sweat together tastes bitter; like resentment and shame and lust. 

 

With a shaking hand Mycroft reaches around Jim's body and searches for a different kind of flesh. His fingers curl around Jim's length and

 

\-- _Oh, Jim. You should be ashamed of yourself--_ Mycroft thinks and if he could have found the strength to laugh through this pleasure he would have-- 

 

finds he is _hard_. Mycroft rubs the pad of his thumb over the head, spreading the wetness he finds there down Jim's length with deft fingers. 

 

And- oh- the sound Jim makes, like a creature overtaken with a disturbing kind of pain. 

 

He wants to hiss at Jim to shut the fuck up because they are in the middle of a fucking school and someone is going to hear them but when he opens his mouth all that comes out is guttural groan, torn from his chest violently. He settles for the next best thing and moves a free hand to the back of Jim's head, curling fingers in hair, and forcing his face into the bed. The power is satisfying, because he still _hates_ Jim Moriarty. 

 

Mycroft gives Jim's member one last stroke before pulling away- because teasing him is delicious- and resuming thrusts. Frantic, heavy strokes - using his own rapid pulse as a metronome on which to time each push- inside of Jim's body that shake the frame of his bed and band his headboard against the wall. 

 

Mycroft feels control slipping and it is only a matter of time before he shatters. And he wants to be disgusted in himself, in Jim, but he cannot because he is _consumed_. 

 

*          *          *

Shame was not something Jim felt often in his life. He felt it once when his father lost his job because he came in drunk one too many times, and then his feelings for his father were purely that of disgust. He felt shame the first time his mother came home wearing something far too short and too tight with a black eye and smeared lipstick, clutching a very small wad of bills in her fingers. His feelings for his mother then went to denial.  He felt shame the first time someone poked fun at his impoverished roots at school—but then it shifted to pride because he had earned his admittance to this school rather than bought it. 

 

Shame was what he felt now with Mycroft’s teeth and hot tongue on his shoulder and fingers around his erection. That feeling didn’t change to anything else—not denial that it was happening, not pity for himself, not pride that he was still going to come away with a small victory from this—no this stayed as deep and personal shame.

 

He felt Mycroft’s fingers, skilled and mocking, stroke him teasingly and Jim was a slave to his body. His throat emitted a strangled cry as Jim tried to swallow it back. He could hear Mycroft groan behind him, and he squeezed his eyes shut.

 

And then his face was pressed, suffocating and tight, against the pillow. The thrusts became more harried and sloppy and Jim could feel as each one sent a shock wave through his body. His toes would clench, his arse muscles would tighten, his spine would tremble, his arms would press harder into the bed, and a moan, or whimper, or gasp would spew from his traitorous lips.

 

Mycroft’s sweat was mingled with his own and Jim knew no matter how hard he scrubbed, that it would never quite go away.  His skin would be tainted forever by the remnants of power, lust, and shame.

 

His puppet master had taken the quill back and snapped it in two, and each thrust sewed another string into his skin.

 

And then there were nails driving into his hips, leaving crescent shaped breaks in Jim’s skin and he wondered in some far off corner of his mind if this was how a puppet was signed by his creator.

 

Well the creator corrected his thought when a final push sent fire through Jim and his own body tensed against it. The creator had put a piece of his own soul into his puppet, giving it just enough life to look real, but not enough to be its own identity; there would always be a small piece of Mycroft Holmes lurking inside him, embedded in the dark corner of Jim’s heart, forcing that darkness to spread to compensate.

 

Mycroft was finished, but Jim wasn’t and he just wanted it to be over for himself as well. His muscles screamed for him to just go limp, but his hand silenced them as it reached to stroke himself through to his finish as if doing so would expel some of his own shame with it.

 

The puppet master pulled out and smacked Jim’s hand away from himself and Jim whimpered. As he tried to bury himself further into the bed to hide his face, he felt a heavy hand yank his shoulder so he was on his back and holy fucking Christ his backside hurt.

 

Defiant eyes opened, underlined by a shame-ridden flush across his cheeks, meeting his creator’s as he breathed raggedly and shook from physical exhaustion.


	6. Chapter Six

_Mine. Mine. Mine_

 

Mycroft’s mind chants in time with every desperate thrust, like it is his mantra. Because Mycroft does not think he can break Jim Moriarty, not completely, but he can at least make him his own. Spoil him.

 

Mycroft presses his fingers into Jim’s hips, hard enough to bruise because he wants to mark the skin. These wounds will be carefully hidden beneath Jim’s clothes, they will never see the light of day. But in the dark Jim will feel how Mycroft has craved away at the stone of him, carved his mark into flesh.

 

And as Mycroft finally reaches his precipice, all sensation pouring into that primitive organ that sings with just the slightest friction, he spills himself willingly into Jim’s body. Sewing himself beneath the flesh. And Jim is his-  _his_.

 

And Jim will never be able to wash this from his skin. Just as Mycroft will never be able to burn this memory from his brain.

 

Mycroft pulls from tight heat, semen trickling down Jim’s backside.

 

And this is repulsive.

 

Abhorrent.

 

But what makes Mycroft sick is that he would do it again.

 

And again.

 

Until Jim  _bled_  and begged for mercy or for more.

 

Jim reaches for his erection, to finish himself but Mycroft hits his hand away.

 

“Oh no no no, Jim.” He hisses, wrenching him onto his back with violent force.

 

He wants to  _see_ this.

 

Partly because he is still devoured by this disgusting lust- lust for Jim’s pain. But mostly because he needs to witness Jim betray himself.- to fall from grace under Mycroft’s cold glare.

 

He wants to blacken Jim’s soul because this act- taking a boy’s virginity out of resentment- has done the very same to him. Mycroft wants to spread through Jim like disease and to rot him, so that every breath he takes sticks in his lungs like tar. Because why should Jim be able to go on when Mycroft is corrupted beyond redemption?

 

“Go on then Jim,  _touch_ yourself.” Mycroft smirks from where he kneels between Jim’s thighs and Jim shakes his head, eyes defiant but not saying a word as if he doesn’t trust his own voice, “No? Feeling shy all of a sudden? I’ll help you with that.”

 

And Mycroft curls his fingers around Jim’s length but the touch is feather light and teasing. He cunningly explores the ridges of Jim’s flesh with his fingertips and

 

–  _don’t think about how fucked up this is_ —

 

it only takes seconds  before Jim shudders and lets the ghost of a moan escape his lips.

 

“Will you give in to it now?” Mycroft hums, though his voice is breaking like a teenage boy at the feel of Jim’s hot flesh. He  _is_ a teenage boy, he has to remind himself. As is Jim.

 

 --  _What the fuck is wrong with me. What am I doing. Shut up, shut up, shut up. --_

 

Jim whimpers but does not move so Mycroft reaches out and envelopes Jim’s hand with his own, guiding fingers to grasp his own member. And oh look at this, the creator giving his pretty little puppet his own strings so he can destroy himself.

 

And Jim strokes himself, beads of sweat breaking out on every pore of his body, to the tune of their shattered song. He still trembles as he moves but he does not let his eyes close or wander from Mycroft. He just  _stares_ and whether he means for them to or not, Jim’s eyes accuse.

 

Suddenly, Mycroft can’t watch this anymore. It’s like staring into the sun, burning him and blinding him. So Mycroft turns his back to Jim, throwing his legs over the bed.  _Coward_.

 

Behind him he hears Jim’s barely contained moans as he finishes his body but he’s already pulling his clothes on. Dressed he turns back to Jim just in time to watch him  _spark_. A spark that sets him on fire because he is just a wooden puppet imitating human ecstasy.

 

Mycroft waits a beat, lets a disturbing kind of calm settle over them – and who ever heard of the calm after the storm-, and stands. His clothes stick to his sweat slicked skin but at least he is hidden by a layer of fabric while Jim lays naked, hand still clutched around himself and seed thick over his fingers.

 

He wants to lap the bitter fluid from Jim’s fingers but he adjusts his tie instead.

 

 _Next time…_   _next time? Oh shut up._  

 

“I trust you won’t be telling anyone my secret,” Mycroft says stiffly, making this sound like a business transaction and not as if he has just buried in Jim’s body, but he allows himself a smirk, “After all, I’m not the only one who likes it up the arse.”

 

Before he leaves he leans over Jim and presses a kiss to the boy’s cheek- like a promise- and whispers, “I’ll see you soon, Jim.” and he slips from the room, leaving Jim in the darkness Mycroft has created, humming an upbeat song. Hoping that his false joy might mask the fact that he is about to crawl back to his bedroom and  _sob_.

 

Because what he has done tonight is a sin and Mycroft knows he will burn for it—is already burning as he stumbles through his door and cannot even reach the bathroom before he empties his stomach onto his floor.

 

He can taste Jim on him. The thought makes him retch again. How long before this fades- or will it never and will Jim be on his tongue forever? And why does that excite him and make him feel sick?

 

_What is happening to me?_

 

_I won._

 

_Jim won’t- can’t tell my secret and I took everything from him._

 

_(Mine. Mine. He’s mine.)_

 

_I won. Didn’t I?_

*          *          *

Jim doesn’t belong to himself anymore. No, his creator had managed to sew those invisible strings into every joint and muscle and with just a flick of his wrist or a twitch of his finger, Jim would dance however Mycroft wanted him to.

 

 _“Oh no no no, Jim…”_ Oh, please…please this isn’t fair, don’t make him do this.

 

 _“Go on then, Jim,_ touch _yourself.”_ No, Jim will not give him this. He’s already given everything, please don’t try to take this last shred of dignity that he had left.

 

 _“No? Feeling shy all of a sudden? I’ll help you with that.”_ The Creator lightly stroked his almost finished product. There was just a little too much independent spirit in it and he wanted to make sure he destroyed it because it just takes a spark to start a fire, and Mycroft didn’t want to lose his new puppet, did he?

 

 _“Will you give into it now?”_ No, he wouldn’t…he couldn’t. He had to fight to keep anything he had in him and he just wanted to push Mycroft away—to slam his wooden fingers into his puppet master’s cheek. He whimpered in defiance instead because his new body was foreign to him and he didn’t know how to make the joints bend. And then his creator pulled his strings and Jim’s hand was wrapped around himself.

 

 _Just let me go…why can’t you just let me go?_ In response, the strings tug again and his fingers are working under Mycroft’s bidding and not his own and he keens and fights every moan that it incites. The only thing that Jim has left is his thoughts and he looks through marble eyes at the shadowy monster leaning over him, trying to send every thought of hatred and pain he can find because he wants Mycroft to _know_. He wants him to imagine what it’s like inside a body that no longer belongs to you, but to some shadowy face in a dark room with biting words, and even sharper features.

 

The little bit of moonlight entering the room caricatures Mycroft’s features as if he’s some storybook villain—the villain in his story; the story of his life that can no longer write by himself.

 

His own fingers finish him, but he doesn’t feel it, almost like he’s out of himself, just watching someone with his face feeling ecstasy and pleasure. It hurts less as he imagines himself floating over his body, detached from his heart and his fear. He catalogues his injuries from his face down.

 

_Blackened left eye._

 

_Split cheek._

 

_Cracked lip_

 

_Bruised shoulders, front, teeth marks hidden on back right shoulder blade._

 

_Marked hips._

 

_Bleeding backside._

 

They would heal. Wounds always heeled because the body was a miraculous thing that could fix itself with time, and time would drag or race, but it would _never_ stop.

 

He watched Mycroft re-dress himself, proud of the creation his hard work rendered. He would stay up here forever, floating above himself because it was okay here.

 

 _“I trust you won’t be telling anyone my secret.”_ No, Mycroft’s secret trade was safe from other ears. The puppet boy didn’t want anyone to know the truth of what he had become.

 

 _“After all, I’m not the only one who likes it up the arse.”_ he heard his own words come out of Mycroft’s mouth and laughed as he watched like a third person observer.

 

But Mycroft had the power to pull Jim back if he willed it. With the sudden press of lips to the puppet’s cheek, he was dragged back within himself, held under lock and key by a whisper of a promise.

 

_“I’ll see you soon, Jim.”_

 

Jim should feel glad that at least he still had his name to call his own—Mycroft had given him that. A name was something, right? An identity? But he felt as if the word _Jim_ had been etched into him somewhere like a tag.

 

He stared up at his ceiling as he heard some pleasant tune leave his Creator’s lips—humming as he left his workshop. After what felt like ages of painful, ringing, silence, Jim decided he needed to learn how his new body worked.

 

It hurt. It _hurt_. He could feel where the chisel came down against his skin, carving at it as he forced himself upright. Jim didn’t have the strength for re-dressing, so he just grabbed his towel, wrapping it carefully around his waist, hiding most of the signs of Mycroft. No one would be up, but Jim didn’t want to see them, himself. He slipped out into the hall and into the bathroom.

 

Stepping into the scalding water of the shower made him hiss and cry out, but he wanted to burn Mycroft off of his flesh. He dragged the wash cloth over every inch of his skin, not caring how much it hurt over his bruises and cuts. Jim couldn’t stand for long though, because he felt so impossibly weak. He collapsed onto the handicap bench, and that was when he broke.

 

Tears wrenched themselves out of his eyes and a sob ripped from his throat. The water from the shower mixed with his tears as he broke down, head tipped back to face the ceiling, resting against the cold tile wall.

 

Finally the tears stopped, and Jim found the strength to turn the water off and to pull himself to his feet. Body shaking from pure and utter exhaustion, he stepped up to a mirror and stared at himself. He wasn’t bothered by the bruises on his face or his ribs. He’d seen them before and they weren’t out of the usual. He turned slowly and looked over his shoulder with a blank face, reaching around his shoulder to finger the bite mark shining brightly off of his parchment skin.

 

Boxwood. Mycroft had carved his skin from boxwood. It was a pale wood, usually without much of a grain and perfect for carving small details. And Mycroft has such fine fingers and a keen eye for minute details.

 

Turning back around, he lowered the towel, ghosting his fingers over the five, finger-pad shaped bruises splayed around each hip. Those hands held so much power. Too much.

 

Jim shook his head and walked back to his room. He didn’t sleep on his bed. He didn’t want to lay in it and feel it all over again. So he lay on his floor, towel still wrapped around his waist, and slept there. It was uncomfortable because no matter how he lay, the hard surface pressed into some bruise or cut.

 

But that was how Jim slept. It was dreamless. Quiet. Dark. Lonely. But he slept because he didn’t know what else to do.

 

Three days passed since that night. Jim hadn’t uttered a word, nor had his face changed from the dull mask of indifference. All of the usual happened. He was shoved in the hallway on his way to class. Books knocked out of his hands on the way to lunch. Muttered whispers escorted him down the halls. The charity boxes were gone—disposed of by the janitors probably in the night.

 

The third day, though…

 

Everything had gone as usual until his final class with Mrs. Hudson. She was a stern teacher despite her pleasant disposition. She was the only one who shut students up when they teased Jim if she saw it. She wasn’t afraid of her students or their parents, and so the students were wary of her. Her class was an evening class—a Shakespeare class and Jim had always secretly loved literature and drama, so he signed up for it without a thought—and this particular evening, she caught him as he was trying to leave.

 

“Mr. Moriarty…Jim…Are you going to tell me where the bruises on your face came from?” Her voice was stern, but there was sadness in her eyes.

 

Jim hadn’t spoken since Mycroft and wasn’t ready to start now. He offered the closest he could get to a smile and shrugged.

 

“Jim,” she sighed, “Please tell me? I can talk to the dean and get this all sorted out. I won’t tell them you told me.”

 

Jim stared at her, face reddening. He felt bad…but…no he couldn’t. It wasn’t that he couldn’t trust her, but…well. No. No he had to handle this shame on his own. He pulled out a sheet of paper and a pen.

 

_I’m not feeling well, so I’ve lost my voice. Doctor told me to rest it. I’m okay—don’t worry about it. Just squabbling with the boys as boys do. Thank you, though._

 

He passed her the paper and offered another half-hearted smile. She didn’t believe him, and it was clear in her eyes. Jim shifted the paper back and scribbled again.

 

 _I have to get back to my room—lots of homework. I’ll see you next class._ He paused before scribbling something else. _I really do appreciate the worry, though._ Jim had no reason to be rude to sweet Mrs. Hudson—not after everything she’d tried to do to help him. He was beyond help, though—he no longer belonged to himself.

 

And as Jim wandered back to his class through the empty hallways, face back to the silent mask, he saw the man who owned him, looking down at his phone.

 

_Jim froze._

 

_Run._

 

_RUN._

 

He couldn’t move, panic set it, and he knew it shone through his eyes and he screwed them shut.

 

_Mask._

 

_Put up your mask._

 

_Anger._

 

_Hatred._

 

Jim opened his eyes again and now his face was set. He hated his creator. _Hated_. And he wasn’t going to let him know how afraid he was any more. Mycroft looked up and paused, his face running through a set of different emotions.

 

Jim didn’t care. Jim was ready.


	7. Chapter Seven

_Once upon a time there was a little boy named Moriarty._

 

_Moriarty was clever and he wa_ _s handsome but he was born of dirt and coal._

 

_His mother was a whore and his father was a drunk. And Moriarty was cursed to never rise from his poverty no matter how hard he tired._

 

_A prince in pauper’s clothing. Trapped by circumstance._

 

_Moriarty and his family lived in a dilapidated little house on the top of a hill. From his bedroom window, which he looked out of often wondering if he could fly, Moriarty could see a palace._

 

_The palace. Moriarty dreamt of that palace and of sitting on the throne and of being someone._

 

_Anyone._

 

_Within the palace lived a prince named Holmes._

 

_Holmes was wicked and he was hideous but he was born of fire and diamonds._

 

_His mother was the queen and his father was the king. And Holmes was gifted never to fall from his wealth no matter how little he tried._

 

_A wolf in sheep’s clothing. Elevated by circumstance._

 

_Holmes and Moriarty did not know but their paths were destined to cross. Because little Moriarty, one day sitting on his hill, received a royal summons._

 

_Moriarty had been given the chance to rise from his roots and he grabbed it with both hands. But he soon found that he was to make an enemy, in a prince whose pride made him believe Moriarty was not worthy._

 

_Holmes and Moriarty were not polar opposites. In fact, they were both the same side of the magnet and it was their similarities- that intelligence- that repelled them so fiercely._

 

_Holmes hated Moriarty and the way he trailed mud into his castle. Hated the way he did not bow to his authority like the rest of them. Moriarty had his own mind. And it allowed him to hate Holmes in turn. Because he could see the wolf that hid beneath the prince’s skin._

 

_And brave little Moriarty exposed Holmes for what he was, with clever words in front of the entire royal court. No one listened, of course they didn’t because Moriarty was just the poor boy; no one listened but the prince._

 

_Possessed by rage, Holmes sought Moriarty in his chambers, slipping through the door on the chime of midnight to muffle his sounds, and cornered the boy. Holmes snarled and bit but Moriarty did not shake. He was going to convince the kingdom that Holmes was corrupt if it took all he had._

 

_So Holmes pulled a needle and thread from his pocket and he sewed the thread beneath the skin of Moriarty’s hands and feet so he could never move himself again. And for safe measure, he sewed his lips together too._

 

_And maybe, by now, you are expecting clever, brilliant Moriarty to cunningly escape and slay the wolf in the crown? But this is not a fairy-tale; it is a thinly disguised truth. And in real life the wolf will always win, even if he does not want to._

 

_And in real life no one lives happily ever after._

 

_\---_

 

Mycroft Holmes has never wanted to be the hero. He’s selfish and he detests the people he would have to help; he is not cut from the fabric that makes a saviour. But he never thought he would be the villain.

 

_(If Mycroft is the fairy tale villain, does that make Jim the hero of this twisted tale? God help them all if their hero is the boy that throws insults like knives and finds pleasure in his pain.)_

 

He is the creature children see in their nightmares, the monster under their bed. The one that crept into a boy’s room under the cover of night and stole his innocence then wanted to do it again. 

 

And it makes him feel sick.

 

Every second from the moment he stepped from Jim’s room that night passes in a painful kind of clarity.

 

His nights are plagued with Jim’s face. He dreams of pinning him down and tearing at flesh with his teeth; just to taste the fear on his skin. He dreams of his own face too and the shadows he casts even in darkness and the savage, hungry eyes. Oh what creature is this that has replaced the proud almost- man that Mycroft used to be? Is it even human?

 

The dreams are not the things that wake him; his sobs do as they shake his body to consciousness. Mycroft does not cry when he is awake- he has not cried since he was eight years old when his mother slapped him across the face for showing her up at a dinner party- but in his sleep he has no control. And he wakes with salt water burning his face.

 

He wakes in a cold sweat and spends the rest of his nights bent over the toilet, attempting to purge himself of the sin within his body. It’s never any good; he thinks he’ll need an exorcist to rid himself of these demons.

 

But the tears and the sickness and the sleepless nights are not just guilt. Guilt alone could not drive Mycroft to this. They are the products of a man realising that he is a beast. Because for all his resentment for what he did to a sixteen year old boy he is more disgusted that he would do it again. That he wants to do it again.

 

So, he doesn’t sleep properly for three days and it doesn’t matter how tall he holds himself to make people think he is okay- he looks broken. The dark smudges beneath his eyes and the ghostly pale tone of his skin betray him perfectly. But life does not stop moving simply because Mycroft Holmes cannot stand it anymore. And he has to remember that he is still a leader; a dictator. And he still has puppets to make dance.

 

“What do you want us to do about Moriarty?” One of them asks in a thuggish tone on the second day.

 

“Nothing.” Mycroft sighs. Nothing. Do nothing. I’ve done enough. Don’t touch him. He’s mine.

 

“Are you sure because-“ 

 

“ _LEAVE HIM ALONE_.” Mycroft snarls but is quick to reign himself in, “I’ve dealt with him already.”

 

They don’t ask how. And he’s glad of it because he cannot think of a single lie to tell.

 

Mycroft makes a conscious effort to avoid Jim during the day because despite his promise that night he does not want to lay eyes on that boy again for fear of what he might do. Jim makes him afraid of himself.

 

He manages it for three days.

 

But St. Bart’s is a small school and he is amazed their distance lasted that long.

 

Mycroft is waiting in an empty hallway when it happens, checking his phone and the ugly text that pretty girl he’s fucking just sent.

 

He looks up and there he is; his living nightmare. Jim Moriarty looks like a rabbit caught in the headlights. Panic shines from his eyes but he seems fixed by Mycroft’s gaze. Then he screw his eyes shut and he reminds Mycroft of a child trying to hide- _if I can’t see them then they can’t see me_.

 

Jim’s bruises have faded, and his skin is painted summer colours- ironically enough-, yellows and greens, instead of the dark purples and blacks of three days earlier. Mycroft lets his eyes wander down Jim’s slight frame- and he cannot help but do so possessively- and his eyes linger on the boy’s waist.  _Are my fingertips still on his flesh? Can he feel me on his skin?_  Mycroft thinks. He hopes his marks are not there any longer but he’s not sure if that’s because he wants Jim to be healed- to ease his guilt- or because he wants to mark him all over again.  _What the fuck is wrong with me?_

 

Jim opens his eyes and his fear is replaced by a cold mask. And Mycroft knows he deserves this- and more- but his jaw still sets into a stubborn line and he raises himself to his full height. Naturally defensive. The tension between them is tangible; it’s heavy and uncomfortable and any moment one of them is going to try and break through it.

 

But then there are voices.

 

Voices murmuring from down the hall that cause Mycroft’s tension to fizzle. Panic sets in. He can’t be caught like this, standing across from- clearly in conflict with- the beaten boy who the teachers have started asking questions about. In a flash decision he grabs Jim’s upper arm and pulls them into the nearest empty classroom, closing the door behind him.

 

Jim struggles and shrugs from his grip and he looks as if he is about to storm out or scream so Mycroft acts to counter both, standing in front of the door and covering Jim’s mouth with a hand.

 

“Don’t say a fucking word.” He hisses under his breath and the voices get louder before they pass by altogether.

 

And then Jim and Mycroft are utterly alone in an abandoned classroom. And- oh- this was such a bad idea.

 

_Let go of his face. Take your hand away._  The rational part of his mind screams.  _Don’t make this worse than it already is._

 

But it must be close to the full moon because Mycroft can feel the big bad wolf in his veins and his hand tightens around Jim’s mouth instinctively, fingertips digging into flesh.

 

“Maybe we should talk.” Mycroft says, and he means talk- just talk. He really does. But his voice suggests something else in that wolfish growl.

*          *          *

Jim’s eyes dart up the moment he could hear the shrill calls of girls headed their way and before he can turn to walk away, the puppet master jerks a string hard and his arm is in an iron grip. He hasn’t spoken in days and even as he opens his mouth now, no sound comes out.

 

Despite his struggle, fire beats wood, and Jim is pulled into a dark, empty classroom and gooseflesh runs up his back in terror, but his face is fucking set and he’s not going to bend under the other’s will easily. The puppet still had human thoughts and he was going to keep those his own no matter the physical cost.

 

The hand clasped on his mouth burned the wood of his skin, but Jim stopped fighting, staring dead into Mycroft Holmes’ eyes without betraying his fear.

 

_“Don’t fucking say a word.”_  Well, he hasn’t. Not since the string was sewn into his throat.

 

The fingers grip tighter, despite Jim’s compliance, and well, he should have anticipated that, shouldn’t he? Mycroft lived off of other’s pain—a parasite, and Jim was his host. But Jim’s eyes didn’t falter, fingers clenched in fists, breathing slowly in and out of his nose.

 

_“Maybe we should talk.”_  Even if Jim could find his voice, he wouldn’t. But he sparks an idea and he knows it will cost him, but a part of him thinks it’s worth it.

 

Jim gives a small nod, reaching up with his right hand, and gently pulling at Mycroft’s wrist until the man released his grip.

 

_Breath in._

 

_Breathe out._

 

And while one hand still rested light and compliant on Mycroft’s hand, the other drew back as fast as a snake and crossed over Mycroft’s cheek. He avoided his nose and teeth—he didn’t need that kind of damage--Just the swelling around the split of his cheek bone.

 

Jim doesn’t even bother to brace himself for the retaliation, because nothing can stop the smile that formed on his muted lips. 


	8. Chapter Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Song Lyrics: "Dustbowl Dance" - Mumford & Sons

He's stronger than he looks, little Jim. 

 

And when his fist connects with Mycroft's cheek it sends the older man staggering backwards. The pain is sharp and Mycroft can already feel his skin swelling but his first reaction is not to bring a hand to clutch his face- as most would do. Mycroft finds that his body naturally lurches forward, like a spring uncoiled, at Jim who makes no attempt to stop him. 

 

One arm comes to pin Jim against the wall and the other raises, hand curling into a fist, and this feels bitterly reminiscent of three days ago.

 

He wants to wipe the smile off that pretty face. But- he catches sight of his own reflection in Jim's dark eyes. And that's not the calm, controlled face of Mycroft Holmes, it's the snarling, manic face of that beast that lives just beneath his skin. 

 

Mycroft hasn't looked at his own reflection for days- it has made it impossible to shave, in fact he hasn't since that night because the sunken, tired eyes and the off coloured skin of the man that stares back from the mirror when he tries do nothing for his vanity, so he doesn't look anymore- and seeing it now, well, it repulses him. He shrinks back from Jim slightly, though he keeps him against the wall.  

 

"I suppose I deserved that." Mycroft hums and then cocks his head mockingly, "But what was that supposed to achieve Jim? Other than getting yourself beaten up again. You really should school your emotions better." 

 

 _Hypocrite_. 

 

His fist is still raised so he uncurls his fingers, letting them trace over the pulse in Jim's neck for a moment. How easy it would be to apply a little pressure and just squeeze the life out of him. And how easy it would be to press his lips to the flesh and just taste his heartbeat. 

 

But he does neither. He laughs instead- chuckles almost and the sound echoes around the empty classroom horribly. He laughs at himself and at Jim and at _this_ and he thinks he must be going insane. Jim bloody Moriarty has taken a little piece of his mind and hidden it in the darkness that festers between them. 

 

\-- They're creatures of darkness now, the two of them. Lost to it. It has consumed Mycroft and Mycroft has cast his shadow over Jim permanently. They belong to this blackness. --

 

Mycroft forces a knee between Jim's legs so he can pin him to the wall with his body- because it is more effective and _not_ because his skin is screaming to be closer to the little bastard- and move his hands to either side of Jim's head.

 

Mycroft feels his own pulse quicken in his chest and he cannot keep from growling in frustration. When was it that he became unable to distinguish between hate and fear and lust? Mycroft can't decide but he thinks it's Jim's fault.

 

He leans forwards, so he can stare into defiant eyes and he smiles slightly though his voice comes out breathy and through gritted teeth, "I can't sleep. I can't stop throwing up. I can't stop fucking crying." 

 

 _Why, why are telling him this?_ that rational part of his mind asks, though it sounds quite, defeated. 

 

_Because I have already shown him the worst parts of myself. What is a weakness? What can he do now? I have destroyed him; he's mine._

 

"I'm not sorry though. And I'd do it again. I wouldn't hesitate and I wouldn't take it back. But I still- I still _hate_ this. Myself. You. This isn't me. What have you done to me?" 

 

_What have you done to me._

 

The question isn't rhetorical but he doesn't know if Jim will answer; if he wants Jim to answer.

*          *          *

The fist looms as a threat over Jim’s head, just like _that_ night.

 

The words of a song run through his head and he grins just a little.

 

 _Seal my heart and break my pride._ Mycroft’s face falters from its usual snarling grimace and the raised fist starts to falter

 

 _I’ve nowhere to stand and nowhere to hide._ Jim doesn’t fight him. He doesn’t move, he doesn’t shake, he doesn’t run. Half of Jim is even waiting for the inevitable bruising of pressed lips. The other half awaits feeling the life squeezed from him by his own strings around his throat. Jim doesn’t truly know which he would prefer.

 

_Align my heart, my body, my mind, to face what I’ve done, and do my time._

 

But neither comes. _“I suppose I deserved that.”_ Jim raises an eyebrow in surprise. _“But what was that supposed to achieve, Jim? Other than getting yourself beaten up again. You really should school your emotions better.”_ If Jim had a voice, he would laugh—laugh hard, loud, and with pride, because they both knew just how hypocritical that was. So he just grinned wide and bared his teeth with it.

 

And then the fist unfurls and the fingers come to curl too-gently around Jim’s neck. Here it comes. Jim doesn’t let the grin break from his face.

 

But Mycroft laughs and that laugh sends painful shivers down his spine. And then Jim is trapped. He’s on his toes thanks to Mycroft’s well placed knee, and his hands are pressed against the wall, the puppet is at the ready for the Master to make him dance.

 

 _“I can’t sleep. I can’t stop throwing up. I can’t stop fucking crying.”_ And then the grin shrinks a little, faltering at words that leave him positively baffled. _“I’m not sorry though. And I’d do it again. I wouldn’t hesitate and I wouldn’t take it back. But I still—I still_ hate _this. Myself. You. This isn’t me. What have you done to me?”_ The grin is back.

 

 _What have you done to me?_ Oh, Jim hasn’t felt this happy in days. He’d actually won in some way. He’d actually manage to steal away a part of the puppet master—a part that wasn’t forced onto him—and the creator hadn’t even known it was stolen until it was too late. It was buried deep beneath the wooden exterior of the puppet, and the only way to get it back would be to crack the carved chest and to retrieve it; Mycroft would have to break Jim completely to even see that part of him again, but Jim knew that there was nothing left that Mycroft could do to break him. Jim had nothing left to give, but his mind, and that was always going to be his.

 

Jim had won, and his only response to Mycroft was a triumphant grin and a silent laugh.

*          *          *

His eyes light up. Like he’s just found his salvation. Like Mycroft has just cut one of the strings holding him.

 

He grins and he laughs. But it is in sickening silence. Like he has no voice.

 

Mycroft has Jim’s voice- he realises he must never have given to him when he was crafting this creature three nights ago. But Jim still has his mind and his will and he is set on it.

 

“Oh aren’t you so fucking clever.” Mycroft hisses and it is all too obvious how successful Jim is at crawling beneath his skin, living just beneath the surface so that the only way to get him out is to scrub his skin away, destroy himself, “Do you think that you can win by being mute?”

 

But Jim is grinning now, manically, and Mycroft guesses that they are both as derailed as one another now.

 

_Haven’t you grasped by now that neither of us can win this. You can’t win a game with no rules. But we can still both lose._

 

Mycroft thinks that’s what he’s aiming for now. Because he’s already lost himself to the tide of his madness; dark water filling his lungs and drowning him. He knows he’ll never see the surface again- not as long as Jim is here holding his head beneath the water- but he can make sure that they both get dragged to the depths.

 

 _We’re both going to lose_.  _I’ll make sure of it._

 

Swiftly, sharply and with all the force he can muster Mycroft brings his knee into Jim’s stomach.  _That_  gets rid of his grin as Mycroft literally steals the air from his body.

 

_I breathed life into you, little puppet, and I can take it again if I wish._

 

Jim’s body naturally contracts, bending him at the middle but he’s still trapped between Mycroft’s body and the wall so he cannot stop himself from resting against Mycroft; forehead pressed to his shoulder as he struggles to find air. Now their drowning together, at least. There is poetic irony in the way that the only person Jim has to clutch onto in his pain is the one causing it.

 

Could they swim if they weren’t so intent on dragging each other down? Are they both that stubborn that they would rather perish than see the other strive?

 

_Yes and yes._

 

They’re cheek to cheek and from here Mycroft is in the perfect position to press his lips to Jim’s ear and talk in hushed, shudder inducing tones.

 

“Okay, okay, stay silent. Don’t fight back.  _Coward._ ”  He grins and he lets his teeth catch Jim’s ear as he pulls away. 

*          *          *

The knee to his gut crumples the puppet boy against his master and he heaves for air with inflexible lungs. Jim’s fingers are splayed out across Mycroft’s chest as he coughs and sputters, making more noise than he had in days. There is a fury burning in Jim’s chest, slowly boiling up for the past 72 hours and this is fucking it.

 

Jim Moriarty is done playing. He is through with his puppet master twisting his strings and jerking his skin. He is done with Mycroft taunting him and trying to wring as much power out of submission as he can.

 

_“Okay, okay, stay silent. Don’t fight back. Coward.”_

 

_Coward._

 

Stupid mistake. The jolt of life that shoots through Jim when his creator bites his ear is all that he needs to shove back as hard as he can.

 

“You want to hear me speak?” His voice startles him because he’d almost forgotten what it sounded like. It was hoarse from disuse, but he knew it would grow in strength the more he used it—and oh this puppet was going to use it.

 

_The young man stands on the edge of his porch._

_The days were short and the father was gone_.

_There was no one in the town and no one in the field._

_This dusty barren land had given all it could yield._

 

Jim squared his shoulder and stepped from the wall, taking in the visage of a man who didn’t know how to control his new pet.

 

_I’ve been kicked off my land at the age of sixteen,_

_And I have no idea where else my heart could have been,_

_I placed all my trust at the foot of this hill,_

_And now I am sure my heart can never be still,_

_So collect your courage and collect your horse,_

_And pray you never feel the same kind of remorse._

 

“Would you like to know how I got here? Oh, come now…I’m sure you thought it was simple. ‘The school wants to raise its numbers and make itself not look as posh as it is and take in a scholarship student for posterity.’ No. No I was kicked out of my fucking house at 16 because my little shit of a father had left and my mother couldn’t be bothered. My town had nothing left for me. So I slept in the library, studying for entrance exams and fighting with the school to win the one slot in the scholarship program, knowing full well I would probably starve to death on the streets if I failed. _I_ was the smartest out of hundreds of fucking applicants and _I_ was accepted. _I_ fucking dragged myself here on my own and _I_ am not ashamed of that.” Jim’s voice was cold and clear. “And here you are, born with a silver fucking spoon in your mouth. And don’t look so horrified, Mycroft Holmes. You asked for this. I am not ashamed of where I came from, but can you say the same?”

 

Jim was slowly advancing on his two-year senior with more determination than he’d ever felt. Jim was going to win this one and he didn’t care what he had to do.

 

_Seal my heart and break my pride,_

_I’ve nowhere to stand and nowhere to hide,_

_Align my heart, my body, my mind,_

_To face what I’ve done and do my time._

 

“You were so determined to make me feel like an outcast. You wanted me to regret ever setting foot in this school. I bet you never thought that I’d be dead in a gutter if I hadn’t did you? No, but I bet you wouldn’t care even if you had, either.” Jim grinned as he watched Mycroft visibly wince at his words. “And look at me now. You’ve taken everything you can because of just that reason— _you can._ And yet I’m not running. I’m still not afraid of you. I’m ready to face whatever consequence you want to throw at me for _existing_.”

 

 _Well you are my accuser, now look in my face_.

_Your oppression reeks of your greed and disgrace,_

_So one man has and another has not,_

_How can you love what it is you have got,_

_When you took it from the weak hands of the poor?_

_Liars and thieves, you know not what’s in store._

 

Jim’s voice raised suddenly, watching Mycroft avert his eyes. “Don’t you dare turn your face away from me, Mycroft Holmes! You asked for this and I’m giving it to you, just like I gave you everything else. Or are you ashamed to see what your own greed can do to people? You are a fucking liar and a thief for the simple reason that you _can_ because…” Jim stops and cocks his head to his side, all of a sudden speaking quietly with an edge of mocking to his voice as his lips turn up in a smile. “Aww, Mycroft. I see it now. You have no one. And don’t try to tell me that stupid slut that hangs off your arm, or your thugs count. I bet your parents didn’t care about you at all. They were too busy for little baby Mycroft.” Another step forward and another step back from Mycroft, whose face was falling in such a way that the puppet boy almost felt human again.

 

“You are lonely and pathetic, friendless and desperate, and that is why you targeted me. I was like an ant, to a boy with a magnifying glass to you, wasn’t I? Someone who you could make feel even lonelier than you were. And that’s why you did what you did—you were so pitifully desperate for someone, _anyone,_ to be close to, and so you took me because no one else would care if you did. No wonder you have no friends, Mycroft Holmes, because you could have had one in me if you’d held out a hand instead of raised a fist, but your so fucking greedy and judgmental that how could you dare care about someone like me—someone filthy and poor and homeless? Or was my intelligence too much of a threat for you? Because I _deserved_ to come to this school instead of paid my way in. I board here because I have nowhere to go and call home. You board here because you have no one at home to love you. And honestly, why would they? I mean really, look at you.” Jim scoffed, looking the man up and down and shaking his head.

 

_There will come a time I will look in your eye,_

_You will pray to the God that you’ve always denied,_

_Then I’ll go out back and I’ll get my gun,_

_I’ll say, “You haven’t met me, I am the only son.”_

Mycroft was back against the wall, staring into Jim’s eyes with—

Oh, shame on you, Mycroft.

 

— _fear_. His little puppet had more strength than he could have expected when he placed the chisel to his skin. That’s the danger of assumptions—they’re almost _always_ wrong. Jim took another step closer and grabbed the front of Mycroft’s shirt and slammed him back against the wall with more strength than he knew his arms possessed. He stared into Mycroft’s eyes, looking up into the taller man’s with the confidence of a man confessing murder with pride, knowing he’ll hang for it, but not giving a fuck.

 

_Well yes sir, yes sir, yes it was me,_

_I know what I’ve done, cause I know what I’ve seen_

_I went out back and I got my gun._

_I said, “You haven’t met me, I am the only son.”_

 

Because Jim was a killer deep down and that wasn’t going to be changed. Jim’s eyes were daggers and his hands were guns. “We’ll be the death of each other, Mycroft Holmes.” Jim’s voice was a dangerous whisper, “But you started this game. You took one look at me and played the first move. Well you shouldn’t play with people who have nothing to lose.” Jim reached one hand up to stroke a finger down Mycroft’s cheek. “Because it will only leave you with just as much as what you left them.”

 

And just to spite the creator, the puppet pulled on the strings and brought him down to the same level, fear and hurt radiating from him.

 

And that was how it came to pass that the puppet-boy kissed some of his own life into his creator.

 


	9. Chapter Nine

When Mycroft Holmes was nine years old he played Hamlet in his primary school’s production of the play.

 

Now no one expects a group of nine year olds to create a work of art from Shakespeare. But they do not go to admire rising stars or soak up the atmosphere of the theatre; they go to see their children. Parents and grandparents and family friends all gathered to watch them shine.

 

It was opening night and the house was full and Mycroft stood behind the curtain waiting for King Claudius and his queue of- 

 

“But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son-“

 

“A little more than kin, and less than kind.” Mycroft’s voice, which was authoritative even then, boomed from off stage where he stood, ringing small hands together and trembling slightly.

 

King Claudius spoke and Mycroft stepped onto the stage as the Prince of Denmark, holding himself tall and proud but not really concentrating on his surroundings. He’s was looking for something.

 

Mycroft rattled off his next few lines with ease, they came mechanically--

 

 _Not so, my lord: I am too much I’ the sun._  and  _Ay, madam, it is common._

 

\--as his wide, searching eyes scanned the sea of proud faces. But he did not see their faces; his mother and father.

 

They weren’t there. They had  _promised_. Mycroft had done this for them, only for them. He hated Shakespeare and he hated pretending to be someone he was not. But he wanted to do something to make them proud- they  _never_  told Mycroft that they were proud of him- so he got the lead role in a play he hated and learnt every line with painstaking accuracy so maybe- just maybe they might look at him like a son and not possession.

 

“Seems, madam! N-nay it is: I know- I know” He was stuttering by then because _they weren’t there_ , “not ‘seems’. Tis not alone my cloak-“ no that wasn’t right, “’Tis not alone my inky cloak, good- good….”

 

“ _Good mother_.” Someone whispered frantically from offstage.

 

“Good mother.”

 

_Mother._

 

And Mycroft was lost to his- his… what was that feeling? Of realising you have lost something you never had or that would never come back.

 

_Saudade._

 

That night Mycroft realised that he was not loved. That he was never loved and would never be loved.

 

At the age of nine, Mycroft Holmes realised he was alone.

 

He feels like that nine year old boy again as Jim speaks now, with a harsh biting tongue. He feels like his head boy’s uniform is one of his father’s suits- the ones that he used to put on and pretend to be a politician in, a leader. Someone feared and adored. But the sleeves always hung over his hands and he always got caught in the trouser legs.

 

And now he is stumbling back from Jim Moriarty and his wicked words, tripping over the trousers that are too big for a child’s legs. At first Jim just rattles off how fucking honourable he is for rising from the filth that he was born into and how despicable Mycroft is for buying his way into this school (which he didn’t because he’s clever)- and he’s heard all this shit before and he doesn’t care. But then it’s not about Jim, it’s about Mycroft.

 

_Aww, Mycroft. I see it now. You have no one._

 

_I bet your parents didn’t care about you at all._

 

_You are lonely and pathetic, friendless and desperate._

 

And they’re dancing- Mycroft steps back on his left leg and Jim steps forward on his right until Mycroft is almost backed against a wall like a startled animal cornered.

 

Jim’s words are not like daggers- nothing so dramatic- they are like pins. Individually they do little damage and draw little blood but when each and every word is like another stab at his skin and Jim’s speech is relentless and long- well the damage begins to amount. More and more pins until Mycroft is full of holes and loosing too much blood.

 

It’s funny because the spilt blood actually eases that guilt at the back of his mind- because he  _deserves_ this. But knowing the he should burn for his sins does not make this any easier, it does not hurt any less.

 

_No wonder you have no friends, Mycroft Holmes, because you could have had one in me if you’d held out a hand instead of raised a fist…_

 

Out of everything, this is the worst. Hearing Jim tell him that he didn’t  _have_ to be alone, that he could have had Jim without  _this._ That Jim was not holding his head beneath the water at all, but that Mycroft had tied weights to his own feet and he was drowning himself and--

 

 _Shut up. Shut the fuck up._ He thinks- he wants to scream but his voice has disappeared.

 

Jim has stolen it and is using it to break him.

 

And then Jim has slammed Mycroft against the wall behind him and now would be the perfect time to lunge forward and tear the little bastard’s throat out with his teeth but he doesn’t --

 

He  _can’t_.

 

He’s scared.

 

Mycroft doesn’t think he’s been scared of anyone but himself before and this sensation is paralyzing.

 

_We’ll be the death of each other, Mycroft Holmes._

 

On that they agree. Because as soon as he finds the strength Mycroft is going to  _kill_ Jim Moriarty.

 

Now Jim yanks Mycroft’s head down- so they are at the same height, but weren’t they always?- and presses his lips to Mycroft’s. It’s quick and harsh but open mouthed as if Jim is trying to breathe his very being in Mycroft- trying to spread the darkness that he created. And despite himself, despite his fear- or maybe because of it, he doesn’t know anymore-, Mycroft is excited by Jim’s dominance over him. By their war. And until Jim pulls away he remains submissive because someone showed him recently that in submission one can find strength.

 

When Jim takes a step back, triumphant, Mycroft lets him believe it for exactly three minutes and twelve seconds in which he leans his head against the wall and takes deep, shuddering breaths.

 

It’s not an act- he cannot breathe, he thinks he might weep. He has lost. But so will Jim.

 

Three minutes and twelve seconds later Mycroft looks at him with hard, dead eyes. The eyes of the drowned. And with startling force he throws himself forwards, hand curling around Jim’s throat and sending them both to the floor.

 

“Congratulations, you… found my weakness. There’s nothing I can say to you anymore. You’re proud of what you are- good for you, by the way- but that really only leaves on thing for me to do.” Mycroft’s fingers tighten on Jim’s neck which such a force that he won’t be able to breath and for a moment Mycroft thinks he might kill him right there. But after a few seconds his fingers ease. Because what good would it do him to end the only other person on this earth who is like him.

 

“I’m alone. I am and you hit every nail on the fucking head. I am desperate and lonely and pathetic but- but I won’t be the only one. Not as long as you’re here because- you’re  _mine.”_ He feels manic right now- possessive, “We can be alone… together.”

 

And with that Mycroft kisses Jim  _gently_.

 

Because anyone can be violent towards the person they resent but there is something sickeningly powerful about treating them with tenderness. Mycroft moves the hand at Jim’s throat to his cheek instead, caressing bruised flesh with delicate fingers.  

 

There’s also something powerful in knowing that you’re about to do something to someone that they hate- and make them enjoy it.

*          *          *

_The King of Zor, he called for war_

 

_And the King of Zam, he answered._

 

_They fashioned their weapons one upon one_

 

_Ton upon ton, they called for war at the rise of the sun._

 

This was a war. It was a war of the mind. A war of the body. A war of foils and mirrors and hatred for everything that made them so similar and so different.

 

King Holmes, with his Champion, Hunger, had reigned over the land of Saint Bartholomew with terrifying power. Moriarty was a peasant, however, and wanted more from his life. With only his friend, Passion, at his side, he claimed a small corner of King Holmes’ domain for his own, building his fortress stone by stone and cementing it with sweat and blood.

 

King Holmes was outraged and started the call for war the moment he saw King James roll into his Kingdom because his pride would not allow a rival of pauper’s roots to take anything from him and the new King Moriarty met the call with a will to fight to the death. And slowly, they took inventory of every weakness their opponent possessed.

 

King Holmes and King Moriarty. So different in their attack plans and yet so similar.

 

_Out went the call to one and to all_

_That echoed and rolled like the thunder._

_Trumpets and drums, roar upon roar_

_More upon more, rolling the call of “Come now to war.”_

 

King Holmes and King Moriarty each sent out word to their own armies. Holmes had his thugs and his goons; brainless knights in fumbling armour, because he was a powerful king with slaves for subjects. Moriarty was destined to lose because his army consisted of only himself and his drive, but with Passion as the King’s Champion, he felt he could not lose.

 

King Holmes sent a proclamation throughout his lands that King Moriarty was a fraud, and to mock and tease—to throw stones at the castle walls. In truth, what is one stone against a fortress? Nothing, unless the stones come hard and fast and in numbers, slowly chipping away at the walls, and then it is a threat—and then those blasted stones broke a hole in King Moriarty’s wall.

 

_Throughout the night they fashioned their might_

_With right on the side of the mighty,_

_They puzzled their minds plan upon plan,_

_Man upon man, at the dying of dawn the Great War began._

 

King Moriarty was ready to rise to the mighty King Holmes; King versus King and Champion versus Champion. See, while the greedy King had watched the wall slowly grow in King Moriarty’s fortress to watch the fear sew itself throughout his nemesis, the clever King was building a weapon that would blow an even larger hole in his opponent’s that would be quick and instantaneous, but equally gratifying.

 

He dragged his cannon day and night through the Kingdom until he stood, proud in King Holmes’ courtyard and stared up at his mighty enemy who stood on his balcony. All of the subjects watched in silent awe as the pauper-made-king set up his contraption with clever fingers until _BANG_ it fired straight through the wall that supported King Holmes’ balcony and he tumbled.

 

Of course all of the subjects ran to help their King, shocked By Moriarty’s strength, but notswayed to fight for his cause. And so the subject-less ruler walked home to his damaged fortress, leaving his cannon to sit and mock the other King as a warning of what he was capable of.

 

King Holmes was furious and planned his next move with his brutal Champion, Hunger, at his side.

 

_They met on the battlefield, banner in hand._

_They looked out across the vacant land._

 

King Holmes took off in the night with his champion and crept through the hole made in his fellow King’s fortress, shocking him to wakefulness.

 

“My army will be here in the morning, good sir,” the greedy King said to the other, “So this is your last chance. Revoke your title and swear fealty to me, and I will spare you and your Champion your lives.”

 

King Moriarty sneered, knowing he had no one but his Champion to defend him, but unafraid, because he was not going to give up everything he worked for to a man who didn’t need it, save for appeasement to his pride. “I will remain the King of this small kingdom until my dying breath. My Champion and I will fight to the death.”

 

Oh, this infuriated the great King Holmes commanded Hunger to make the first strike, wounding the pauper King for his insolence, only seeing the foil and not how his own reflection was staring at him. Hunger struck at the other King, but forgot about Moriarty’s Champion lurking in the shadows, waiting to avenge his broken leader.

 

Dawn broke, and the Champion, Passion, stood forth, proud and pitiless, surprising the other King and Hunger. The two had thought he’d fled the scene and betrayed his master, and as they stood in shock, Passion dealt a terrible blow to King Holmes. Both members of Royalty were left on the floor, bleeding and dying by hand of the other’s strongest man.

 

_And they counted the missing, one upon on,_

_None upon none. The war was over before it begun._

_Two little kings, playing a game._

_They gave a war and nobody came._

 

The Champions were at a stalemate. Neither was stronger than the other. In a way, Passion and Hunger were as similar to each other as the Kings they protected and served. And so, recognizing this, they stood watch over their dying masters, unashamed of their actions, because they were nothing but soldiers and death was nothing foreign to them.

 

No men came at dawn to protect the greedy King Holmes, and for the first time, he was forced to see that he was truly alone.

 

Just as alone as King Moriarty.

 

Together, in their pitiful solitude, they only had each other for company until death would graciously come and seize them.

 

Finally, they saw that their lives were truly mirrors and though they were distorted, cracked, and bent, they would always be the same in the end.

\----

Jim felt the seconds tick by as Mycroft tried to patch up his wounds, and stared smugly back. He wasn’t proud of his words, but he didn’t care. Mycroft didn’t need to know that Jim felt dirty and disgusting for everything he said despite his pride in his victory.

 

_“Congratulations, you…found my weakness. There’s nothing I can say to you anymore. You’re proud of what you are…but that leaves me with only one thing to do.”_

 

Jim didn’t have enough time to stagger out of the way before his windpipe was squeezed shut and his head slammed against the floor. It would always be this war. Give and take. Push and pull. Passion and hunger.

 

The edges of his vision were blackening as he scratched at the tile floor, writhing as he fought for air.

 

But slowly, _slowly_ , air began to trickle back through and he was finding himself gulping in air and turning his head away as he coughed and heaved. As he caught his breath, he heard Mycroft whisper so deadly quiet, Jim had to strain to hear.

 

 _“I’m alone. I am and you hit every nail on the fucking head. I am desperate and lonely and pathetic, but- but I won’t be the only one. Not as long as you’re here because- you’re_ mine. _”_

 

There was an old adage—“Kill them with kindness.” Jim had thought it was stupid, because kindness couldn’t truly kill.

 

He was wrong.

 

Because the gentleness of Mycroft’s kiss was more painful than the same man driving into him and stealing his virtue three nights prior. The hand that bruised his throat now deftly stroked Jim’s cheek, searing the skin with how tender it was.

 

And Jim lay there, knowing he was alone in the world with the only person he’s ever truly hated. Two Kings left alone on a chess board, playing a game of moving square by square, never able to defeat each other because they share the same weaknesses and strengths.

 

So Jim did something he never thought he would, because well, if you’re going to die alone, die alone with someone else.

 

Jim Moriarty lifted his hands to knit his fingers together behind Mycroft’s neck and _kissed back_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song Lyrics used: "Zor and Zam" - The Monkees.


	10. Chapter 10

There were many scenarios Mycroft had prepared himself for when he pressed his lips softly to Jim’s.

 

Limbs tensing in fear or

 

Body relaxing in submission or

 

Arms coming to shove him away in anger but

 

Not  _this_.

 

He doesn’t know how to respond to Jim’s fingers in his hair, pulling him closer and kissing him in return.

 

_Are you doing this to spite me, Jim? Because that won’t work. You’re clever. You should know that. You do know that. Which can really only mean one thing,- oh really Jim I am a little disappointed and maybe a little excited but hush- that you **want** this._

 

_Do you even know that you want this?_

 

Opening his mouth to deepen the kiss, Mycroft cannot catch the whine that escapes his lips which is lost on Jim’s tongue. It is a desperate, pathetic sound and it reminds him so much of similar noises made just three days ago, only then they came from another’s lips.

 

The rational part of Mycroft’s mind is speaking again, reminding him that they are laying on the floor of a fucking classroom and while he could probably charm his way out of being caught beating Jim but he _cannot_ explain fingers in hair and tongues running along teeth. However, the voice is quiet. It gets smaller and smaller every moment he is near Jim- because the boy brings out the very worst in him- and now it is barely a whisper. And Mycroft can ignore it and forget where they are and just think about  _this._

 

But what is this? What is happening? Is he still the villain of this story if the little hero has fallen to darkness? And was Jim ever the hero at all?

 

This feels like desire but there is no passion.

 

He resents Jim Moriarty but he could not hurt him again. Not in the way he did that night at least.

 

And why does he think it is better to be alone with the only person he truly hates than be completely isolated?

 

They’re a contradiction.

 

And they’re so fucking messed up. So  _broken._  Like shattered glass.

 

Mycroft remembers a bleak scene from his childhood; his eleventh birthday. There was no party, no presents, his mother had given him a kiss- smearing crimson across his cheek- as way of a ‘happy birthday’ and his father had not even remembered. That wasn’t what made this particular birthday stand out, after all they all shared those features, it was the broken mirror. Mr and Mrs Holmes were renowned for their rows and this one was particularly spectacular. Mycroft didn’t know what it was about, he didn’t care, this happened too often, but voices were screamed hoarse and when they were too tired to shout they began to throw things. Mycroft read a book. And when they were done and his father had stormed from the house and his mother had gone to sob in the bathroom, Mycroft crept down the stairs and began to pick up the debris until he found himself face to face with a shattered mirror. It was fascinating to him; how the one hit from a blunt object in its centre had spread cracks throughout it like a spider’s web. And even more fascinating than that was the boy standing on the other side of the glass. He was not Mycroft Holmes- he was twisted and gnarled. Features distorted wonderfully to an unrecognizably familiar boy.

 

Mycroft can see that boy again. Only now he is not trapped behind a mirror, he’s pinned beneath Mycroft.

 

Mycroft knows what would hurt him, what would conflict him and destroy him. And if he and Jim are one and the same, distorted mirror images, then Mycroft knows what will hurt Jim.

 

An idea sparks.

 

That spark spreads into a fire until it consumes Mycroft and he knows what he’s going to do.

 

Mycroft curls his fingers around the lapels of Jim’s blazer and sits up, pulling the younger man up with him as he goes. And he’s straddling Jim’s lap and staring into questioning eyes and this is just so fucked up that he can’t help but grin wickedly.

 

Mycroft places a kiss on Jim’s jaw before pulling away to stare into liquid brown- a fitting colour, like the filth of his upbringing. Mycroft’s eyes do not hide his hate but they are not hard and cold. How does that make sense?

 

Oh what a pretty paradox they are.

 

“Jim,” Mycroft whispers as he runs his hands over Jim’s chest, smoothing the creases he made before, “I am going to give you something now.” He takes a breath because he wants to watch the cogs turning behind Jim’s eyes. But he won’t guess. And this will destroy him. “I am going to give you a  _choice._ I won’t touch you again if you tell me not to.” But Mycroft’s hands have crept to the waistband of Jim’s trousers, fingers teasing at his crotch and Mycroft can  _feel_ that Jim wants this, “I’ll stop right now, you just have to tell me that you don’t want this. And do please try and be sincere.”

*          *          *

It’s a funny thing about choice. A very funny thing.

 

Sigmund Freud was someone that Jim had studied heavily, as he was fascinated by his ideas of the id, ego, and superego.

 

The id is animalistic—it takes what it wants and doesn’t care for what it breaks or hurts or damages. The id is what man is born with before society can influence it with rules and regulations.

 

The superego is reserved—it is every social construct man is taught throughout his life; every rule, regulation, standard, and expectation. It is what fights violently against the id.

 

Man is the ego—the “I”—the balance between the id and the superego. For every human being, according to Freud, there is a different ratio between the two; some have a stronger id and others have a stronger superego.

 

For Jim Moriarty, he had always kept his id in firm check, befriending his superego because uniformity was the way to higher places. Of course some of his id shone through—but it was mostly in his drive and his hunger to reach a position in life he could be proud of.

 

It was because of these drives that choice was a funny thing. See, for Jim, his id and his superego were at a war and he and his ego were falling apart, being torn at the seams, as he tried to make a decision. It was as if each side were arguing its case in court and his ego was the judge, jury, and potentially, his executioner.

 

 _“I’ll stop right now, you just have to tell me that you don’t want this. And do please try and be sincere_. _”_

 

The clever fucking bastard.

 

His id was screaming: **Yes. Say yes. What are you waiting for? Push him to the floor and take him like he took you.**

 

His superego clucked in response, as if to a child: _Dear, do you realise what succumbing to_ _someone like Mycroft Holmes would mean? It would mean that you’ve lost all respect for yourself and that he has won. What will this do to help you in any way? It’s indecent and crude, and you’re in a_ classroom _for goodness sakes._

 

Jim took a deep breath.

 

53 seconds had passed since Mycroft offered his choice.

 

**When do you ever do something for yourself? Look at you—your body is trying to tell you something, and don’t think you can ignore that erection. Mycroft certainly can’t. Don’t be an idiot and pass an opportunity like this. Better still…think of all that can be _gained_.**

 

_What can really be gained? Mycroft’s mocking words and more blackmail for him to use against us. For all you know, this is a set up. He could have people staged to walk in and claim that you were taking advantage of Mycroft. You will lose your scholarship and where will that put you? The streets and eventually six feet below the earth. Not to mention, think about your dignity. Do you really want to diminish it further? Think about this, Jim._

 

Two minutes and 34 seconds had passed since Mycroft offered his choice.

 

**Blackmail? You think this blackmail can only be used in one direction? One trip down to hospital, and you can get enough proof to call what Mycroft did rape. Sure he can buy his way back into the school, but that will not change the fact that it will forever be on his record. And who says this has to be a loss of dignity anyway. Like I said—take from Mycroft what he took from you. Make him beg for you, Jim.**

 

_I…Jim…really think about this. Is it wise? Can you win, physically against him? You’re small and slight, while Mycroft is a good deal stronger and two years older than you. Think of the indecency…_

 

Three minutes and 41 seconds had passed since Mycroft offered his choice.

 

The ego made its decision.

 

Jim’s face changed from its passive mask to one of twisted mockery. “Mycroft, Mycroft, Mycroft,” he purred, running his hands up and down the taller man’s chest slowly as he taunted. “This is no choice at all.” His hands were gentle and submissive.

 

Carefully, almost as if asking for permission, he pulled Mycroft down into a sweet, chaste, kiss. He felt Mycroft relax against his hands and Jim shoved, sending Mycroft onto his back, when he climbed on top of him, pressing his hands into the other man’s shoulder’s and effectively pinning him. His knees were bent on either side of Mycroft’s waist and the man was trapped there.

 

“Just because the answer is yes, doesn’t mean it gets to be on your terms. Oh no…” Jim said, seductively, leaning in to nip and worry Mycroft’s earlobe between his teeth, imitating what the other man had done earlier to him. “You’re going to play _my_ game now.”

*          *          *

There is a battle of consciousness raging behind Jim’s eyes. Mycroft can see it.

 

It’s a beautiful sight, watching that conflict play out on the brown of Jim’s eyes, like the earth on which two sides are battling fiercely. A war beneath his skin and all because of Mycroft’s words.

 

He feels a little smug but he decides to let this play out.

 

Curious.

 

_53 seconds have passed since Mycroft offered his choice._

 

His lips twitch occasionally.

 

His eyes are glazed over. He’s somewhere else.

 

Oh how Mycroft wishes he could hear the devils- because he might have a lesser of two evils but neither can possibly be an angel- whispering into Jim’s ears.

 

_Two minutes and 34 seconds have passed since Mycroft offered his choice._

 

Mycroft brings his fingers up to graze over Jim’s jaw line. He doesn’t even register it. He presses a finger into the hollow of Jim’s cheek and tilts his head, watching those dark eyes carefully.

 

Fascinating.

 

_Three minutes and 41 seconds have passed since Mycroft offered his choice._

 

And Jim has made up his mind. He snaps back from his trance in seconds.

 

 _“Mycroft, Mycroft, Mycroft,”_  Jim purrs and it is mocking but the tone makes his voice vibrate deeply through both of their bodies and sends a shock wave of pleasure up Mycroft’s spine; it is all he can do to stop himself from grinding his hips into Jim’s lap.

 

_“This is no choice at all.”_

 

And Jim is asking, politely- too politely, for Mycroft’s lips with his own. And he should see it coming but Jim’s hands are gentle and he finds himself relaxing into them instead of bracing for the shove that forces him onto his back.He’s a little winded so he doesn’t fight when Jim’s hands come to pin his shoulders to the floor.

 

 _"You’re going to play my game now.”_  Jim nips at Mycroft’s ear and he resists the urge to shake him off.

 

Now this is curious.

 

A detached part of Mycroft’s mind looks at this with fascination- amazed at the lengths he will go for lust. It’s like an experiment; just  _how far shall desire drive you before you **snap**_ **.**  But the present part of Mycroft is utterly humiliated. He feels a hot blush creep onto his cheeks and he has to bite his lip to stop from hissing at Jim to  _get the fuck off_.

 

Will he really allow this? Allow himself to be dominated just so that he might be granted a taste of that alabaster skin. He doesn’t have to, he could just  _take._  He’s two years Jim’s senior, taller by a head and easily more powerful- the ease in which he could dominate Jim was staggering.

 

 _But you gave him a choice_ , a haughty voice reminds, _and he can still stay no if you do something he doesn’t want. So push him to the floor and attack his flesh with angry teeth if you’re willing to risk him leaving._

 

Mycroft realises that he isn’t willing at all. His blood is singing for this.

 

_When did fear and hate and lust become so indistinguishable to him?_

 

Reaching up to curl his fingers around Jim's head, Mycroft uses the grip to yank his head down so their mouths meet violently- lips bruising and swelling from the force of their joining. Jim complies for a moment but is soon pulling away.

 

“Ah ah ah,” He tuts mockingly with a smirk playing on pouted lips like a sin, “My terms, remember?”

 

Mycroft lifts his head as high he can with Jim still pining him down and snaps at him with a growl. But the growl dissipates into a whimper at the absence of Jim’s lips; the wolf into a puppy begging for a taste of flesh.

 

Mycroft's mind is telling him to shove Jim away, to stop letting him dominate this. This is embarrassing, degrading-  _it’s exactly what you did to him_. Only Mycroft could leave right now, Mycroft could easily change their positions. But his body wants this, if the strain in his trousers is anything to go by, and so he lies beneath Jim submissively and waits.

 

And this is somehow more humiliating than being taken by force. Because at least then there is no choice.

 

Mycroft doesn't know what to do now, the role of the docile lover does not come naturally to him so he takes a moment to watch Jim carefully. Mycroft thinks that if he is thunder- all loud and relentless and desperate to be heard but impossible to actually see- then Jim is lightening- all silent and fast and desperate to go unnoticed but impossible to miss. Together they’re a storm and they’ll destroy this school with their reign.

 

How did their roles change so swiftly? Mycroft is sure that Jim is still nothing more than a puppet, wooden and hollow and oh so easy to break, but somehow he has grasped his own strings from Mycroft’s unsuspecting fingers and wrapped them around his masters neck. He’ll hang for his insolence by his own puppets hands.

 

Jim smirks but he does not stop Mycroft’s fingers as they come to yank at the knot of his tie. 

 

 _\-- Are you sure that’s a good idea? The door is still unlocked, this is still a classroom. Maybe- **maybe** you can explain your way out of a tangle on the floor while clothed. But even the idiots here could see sex if you’re both stripped.  _The rational urges.

 

 _Shut up. We want his skin._ The wolf snarls.

 

The wolf wins. --

 

Mycroft thinks that if he pulls hard enough he might be able to tear the fabric and Jim, too poor to buy another, will have to parade the school with his mark for the rest of the year. But Jim, reading it on his face, catches his wrists with stiff fingers and ceases his tugging.

 

“ _No_.” Jim growls dangerously and the word would have no effect if it wasn’t accompanied with a clever twist of his slim hips against Mycroft’s groin.

 

Jim is laughing quietly- a harsh sound that makes Mycroft’s skin crawl- and he strives to stop the noise, slipping his arms into the boy’s shirt, so they’re pressed flush against each other, and raking blunt nails down Jim’s back. That does it.

 

The pain makes Jim shudder and hiss but he doesn’t pull away, doesn’t stop Mycroft from doing it again.

 

“Oh Jim,” Mycroft croons mockingly, masking his own sick pleasure- the fact that the sound of Jim’s discomfort makes heat pool at the pit of his stomach-  with a jeer “I think you like this pain just a little  _too_ much.”

*          *          *

Mycroft tried all the moves he could to regain control, but Jim could see with delectable ease that, deep down, Mycroft wanted him and he would do damn near _anything_ to have him. Well Jim could grant him that wish.

 

He shivers at the nails down his back, and maybe it was wrong to be so drawn in by that simple act, but to be honest…compared to all of the terrible things that these two had done to each other, to find pleasure in that would make sense. For Jim and Mycroft, dragging nails are tender.

 

 _“Oh Jim, I think you like this pain just a little_ too _much.”_ Jim just smirked back, shaking his head in an almost reptilian fashion.

 

“Maybe I like this pain, but you like being underneath me even more—I can see it in your eyes. Well, Mycroft…I would be cruel to deny you what you so desperately crave, wouldn’t I?” He sniggered, his own eyes glinting with black flames. “I suppose I’ll leave the cruelty to you then.”

 

Jim tilted his head as he watched the emotions swirl beneath the Creator’s skin. Did he like seeing his puppet from this angle? Perhaps he should become better acquainted with the wood of his little toy.

 

“Shh, love…don’t bother arguing. It’s not going to do you any favours,” Jim said, stroking his cheek with a delicate finger which came to rest on the underside of Mycroft’s chin. There was something so painfully thrilling about having this so much control over his own master that he felt another twitch that added pressure in his pants. He presses up, digging his finger into the soft _human_ flesh, forcing Mycroft’s chin to rise and tilt his head to the right.

 

His lip curls up crookedly at the way his adam’s apple bobs when he swallows. Jim lets another patronizing chuckle slip as he presses his lips to the exposed depression behind Mycroft’s jaw.

 

“By the way you were so _eagerly_ trying to undress me…,” he purred, nuzzling the man’s ear in mock gentleness, “I’d say you were just a little hungry…would I be wrong?” Jim nips at his earlobe before standing up and dragging Mycroft to his feet as well by his tie, walking backwards until he was up against a wall and out of the line of sight of the window on the door.

 

Jim let his hands run from Mycroft’s cheeks, to his neck as if exploring and _again_ the man eased into the softness of his touch just as he did last time. It wasn’t until his hands came to rest on Mycroft’s shoulders and he jerked, knocking the man onto his knees.

 

It was all too clear at the way things seemed to mirror the events of the other night. With the fading light of day, Jim must have appeared as a spectre with sharp angles of shadows looming over Mycroft as he had done to Jim.

 

Because Jim liked poetic justice.

 

He ran his fingers through Mycroft’s hair—the man was determined not to look at him as soft curses escaped his lips—when suddenly he knotted his fingers in, twisted his wrist, and jerked the man’s head back so that their eyes were glued together.

 

“Let’s make this fair, Mycroft…I’ll give you a choice as well. You can either put that mouth to better use than prattling on and complaining, or you can get up and run away like a coward. I won’t stop you. Hell, you’ll never have to hear a word from me again. But this is your choice. So what will it be, Mycroft, dear?” His words were easy and quiet, smiling as much as his face and his eyes, though it was a different smile than had ever been on Jim’s face before.

 

Because Jim was _different_.

 

You see, when Mycroft took what was left of Jim’s virtue, he birthed a darkness in him—a darkness that came from Mycroft’s shadow over the boy that Jim was that night—and that darkness was hungry and wanted to be satiated.

 

Jim became a man the moment Mycroft left his bedroom and the door clicked shut. And more so, he became a man who cared much less for the mores and folkways of the world and society. Three days had passed, and now it was time for Mycroft to christen his bastard creation—to take responsibility for the monster he created.


	11. Chapter Eleven

Obedience is subjective.

 

Some humans are programmed to obey and some to rebel.

 

Mycroft Holmes has always followed rules obstinately. Not because he is susceptible to authority but because he has always been the one making those rules. Mycroft knows obedience, but only when he was obeying himself.

 

But right now- in a dark classroom with air thick with lust- there are no rules, just anarchy and a monster he has created with complete control. Complete  _authority_. And Mycroft has to obey or starve in this dystopia.

 

He chooses to obey.

 

Mycroft allows himself to be pulled up by his tie, a dog on a leash, and allows himself to lean into Jim's gentle fingers- because despite himself, Mycroft wants to pretend that this is just sex, just desire and not a viscous power play- only to find himself being pushed violently to the floor.

 

 _Fool me twice. Shame on me_. the Rational clucks at Mycroft as he hits the floor, a hiss escaping stubborn lips at the blunt force against his knees.

 

Mycroft's face flushes a brilliant shade of red and he mutters petty insults

 

\--  _Bastard. Fucking little prick. Son of a_ \--

 

before his head is yanked back and he is trapped in Jim's gaze. He is statuesque from this angle. An unequalled being carved from stone and fitted with hard glass eyes- Mycroft tries not to think that he is the one who carved this creature. He is beautiful- all shadow and savage angles- and Mycroft  _hates_  it. Hates how he is forced to swallow thickly just to suppress a shudder of consuming lust.

 

_"Let’s make this fair, Mycroft…I’ll give you a choice as well. You can either put that mouth to better use than prattling on and complaining, or you can get up and run away like a coward. I won’t stop you. Hell, you’ll never have to hear a word from me again. But this is your choice. So what will it be, Mycroft, dear?”_

 

 _Dear._  the term of endearment rolls from his tongue as an insult and it stings just a little. It reminds Mycroft of the way his father speaks to his mother; their relationship a constant struggle for power founded upon hate and deceit. Mycroft stops thinking about his parents, it makes him feel sick.

 

Fingers move to Jim's trousers, the harsh sound of the zip coming down like nails drawn across metal, making Mycroft shudder in anxiety and anticipation. He wants this, he does, his body  _aches_ for it- but to give Jim the satisfaction… is it worth it? No. Will he go on anyway, disguising his shame poorly and his desire even poorer? Yes.

 

Mycroft pulls Jim's trousers and underwear over his hips, freeing his erection. Mycroft is loath to find that his mouth fills with saliva at the sight alone.

 

He expects that when he is ruling this country he will not look back on the moments in which he had ultimate power, but to this moment right now; when he's on his knees and at the mercy of a child.

 

 _Just get it over with._ Mycroft thinks and, with no tact or grace, lunges forward almost desperately and envelopes Jim in his mouth, tongue tasting sweet skin. Not expecting the ferocity in which Mycroft attacked, Jim cannot control his convulsion, hips thrusting forward. The motion sends Jim’s member to the back of Mycroft’s throat and he gags involuntarily.

 

Jim laughs at the sound.

 

Mycroft grazes teeth sharply along sensitive flesh to stop him.

 

Suddenly there is an absence of warmth in his mouth- Jim has drawn back, pulled out with a hiss of agony. After a few sharp inhalations Jim jerks Mycroft’s head back with the hand in his hair.

 

"Apologise." Jim he demands simply.

 

" _What_?" Mycroft spits in return.

 

"You heard me, love. Say you're sorry or I end this right now." His tone is not jeering, it is low and dangerous and full of threat.

 

Mycroft flushes again, tips of his ears burning with embarrassment.

 

 _No! Do not fall prey to this. Jump to your feet. Push him to the wall. Attack. Teeth. Tongue. Lips. Devour._  the Wolf barks almost incoherently.

 

 _He is young. Inexperienced. And there is always a point during **this**  in which the scales tip, the dynamic shifts and the power belongs to the one in the floor. So say you're sorry, bow and scrape and swoon, and then let him possess your mouth like a child. Because, though you've made him a monster, when it comes to this he is still just the boy and you the man. _the Rational says in a clipped tone.

 

And for once, Mycroft listens to the latter. Because there is strength in submission.

 

"I-" he falters and growls in frustration, "I'm  _sorry_."

 

"That wasn't so hard, was it?" Jim hums lightly, amusement playing on brown eyes, "Now, enough talking."

 

Mycroft simply scoffs and reaches out to Jim once more.

 

Slowly this time. Teasing.

 

He lets intrepid fingers ghost along the planes and ridges of Jim's erection and finds a small victory in the way he shivers, like a phantom has passed through him, beneath his touch. Carefully- _carefully_ , with one hand curled around the base of his erection and the other braced against his thigh, Mycroft leans to run a tongue, hot and wet, down Jim's length.

 

He raises his eyes to meet Jim’s and remembers to three days back- that look of defiance he held even in his humiliation and Mycroft imitates the look  _perfectly._

 

 _I know you can see how our positions have changed. You strived for this. Poetic justice._ His look says,  _But do you realise it comes at a price? Yourself. Because now you’re no better than me, Jim Moriarty. You are me. We’re just a broken mirror._

 

Unashamedly, Mycroft wraps moist lips around Jim’s tip- teasing with his tongue and careful with his teeth- before swallowing a little more. And more. Agonisingly slowly and taking every flick of his tongue into careful consideration. Jim’s hips thrust again. He’s ready for it this time, adjusting to the strain.

 

He finds his clinical knowledge of the human body comes in use now, as his fingers trace Jim’s form.      

 _Inner thigh to arse to perineum to testicles._ the Rational chants like a sinful version of Dry Bones- he is beyond redemption, so why not corrupt the word of their false deity?- ,  _Softly, gently, stroke. Stimulate. Now, a little pressure. More. Oh yes, can you feel the way his body tenses, like a coil- winding. He’ll unravel soon just-_

 

A moan brakes through Mycroft’s monologue and he takes Jim a little deeper into his throat, engulfing completely. Devouring. Because the scale is tipping. Mycroft is feeding Jim the rope with which to hang himself and that noose is getting tighter with every stroke of his clever tongue.

*          *          *

The second time Mycroft takes Jim in his mouth is something spectacular. He feels as if he’s taking slow, light steps up, though he doesn’t know where they lead.

 

You see, Jim was a boy in man’s clothing. He’d gone through so much in his life that he’d forgotten that he was still, truly a child. In fact, most people forgot that he was a child after one look to Jim’s cold, glassy, eyes. No warmth of innocence lurked there.

 

Those eyes were lost to the world, at the moment, though, as his lids were closed against the swelling sea waves of his pleasure. Yes, he could hear the sea as he ascended those steps.

 

The scene slowly came in to focused behind his eyelids like an old film projector. His moans provided the backdrop for this movie—movie of what? Of his growing excitement as he neared climax?—Oh Jim didn’t care because he felt lighter than he’d ever felt as the wood steps—a wood less fine than what Mycroft used to carve his skin, and darker too, stained with the salty sea air—like a child set free on a playground, allowed to swing as high as he could and run as fast as his legs would allow.

 

For once, Jim had control of the hand that was dealt to him and he was happy…

 

 _So happy_.

 

Or was he? Was the euphoria genuine, or some fake substitute called pleasure? One press of Mycroft’s fingers here, and the scrape of a hot tongue there, and Jim didn’t care _what_  it was, only that he was feeling it and was swallowed up by the feelings it gave him.

 

 **Yes!** His id cried, his hunger for such primal treats slowly being satiated, **Yes, more…MORE.**

 

Jim whined as boy’s hips thrust forward, trying to take in as much as he could, greedy in a way only a child can be with something he wants.

 

 _Jim…Jim stay focused…he has something planned. This isn’t as simple as you think it is,_ his superego chides, maternally.

 

And Jim, blindly obeying, tries to open his eyes and to make sure he still truly he had control, but the scene flashes before his eyes again. He’s reached the top of the stairs and all he can do is look out at that grey and violent sea, wind whipping through his hair and blowing his shirt like a sail. A guiding hand brings him to stand in the middle of the wooden platform made just for him to look out at the great majesty of that endless ocean.

 

 ** _Jim!_** Both voices cry at once and suddenly there’s something blocking his eyes. A sweat breaks across his brow as fingers blindly seek purchase in an unyielding wall. He can’t open his eyes, something is blocking them and he can still hear the sea? Or is that the waves of pleasure and the sound of sharp breathing that simply imitates the sea.

 

He’s trapped between two worlds—a child’s daydream and a man’s ecstasy—and the tug to and fro feels tight about his neck. Oh god, he’s so close to the edge that everything is constricting and even his lungs can’t take in air. The sea breeze has turned into a gale wind and he can barely draw in a breath. 

 

Suddenly, the wooden floor beneath him doesn’t feel as sturdy and he sees white behind his eyelids, overwhelmed by the power of his own climax. He’d never cared much about sex, and anything he’d done with himself had merely been because it was what his body required at times—and it was always mechanical and cold….but this…

 

…This was intoxicating and sobering all at once. The floor dropped out beneath his feet in the daydream and the rope constricted around his neck, and he danced like the puppet he was until the life was choked from his lips.

 

Jim’s knees were weak, and in the end, couldn’t support him. His joints were made of wood once again and he slid down the wall, breathing hard, flushed, eyes glued shut, and knees bent around Mycroft who probably was smirking in his victory.

 

See, Jim should never forget that he was a child, because he still cannot play the games of men and hope to win—not when he was against a man such as Mycroft Holmes. All of the ropes he’d cut free were sewn back in again right under his nose. And the worst part was, he should have seen it coming, because he was the one who taught the power of submission to a man like the one before him.

 

He’d hung himself with his own strings and now Mycroft owned him again. Those cold, glass, eyes opened again and met Mycroft’s gloating ones, peripheral catching the way his lips were swollen and glistened. Within his eyes, hatred was all that could be found.

 

But was it for Mycroft…or himself? 


	12. Chapter Twelve

Mycroft moves his mouth cleverly.  

 

_The noose tightens._

 

Jim comes undone, finishing with a strangled moan. 

 

_The trap door opens beneath him._

 

He fills Mycroft's mouth. He tastes like Mycroft's damnation. Hot and bitter and delicious. 

 

_He falls spectacularly. Limbs flailing like a marionette. Neck snapped._

 

Knees buckle, unable to carry the weight of his shame, and Jim slides down the wall.

 

_His executioner laughs, because that is what is expected of him, but it is a hollow sound. Too much death- he's seen too much. He takes no pleasure in this boy's little death._

 

Jim's eyes snap open and watch Mycroft coldly. The resentment rolls over him in waves- he let's it. He returns Jim's look but with triumph- false, lying victory. He doesn't feel like he's won.

 

_Was it worth it?_ He asks himself expecting a hiss of yes from one side and a cry of no from the other. But there is nothing but resounding silence. They have left him alone to face his ultimate temptation, Jim Moriarty, the one that will be his end.

 

Because pain begets pain.  _begets pain begets pain begets pain_

 

Revenge is viscous. And when it is between two boys, beguiled into believing they are men by their intellects, revenge is cyclical. Unending. 

 

They both see it too well. But they are both too obstinate to relent. They will take each other apart until there is nothing left but their mechanical hearts. 

 

Jim is breathing heavily, panting, it is the only sound in this prison they have built up around themselves. He is too loud in the silence. He hates it. Hates the sound of him and how it quickens his pulse. 

 

"Hush, boy. Hush." Mycroft murmers, pressing their lips together. 

 

Jim kisses back but it is languid, strangely unresponsive. Mycroft strokes his tongue deliberately against Jim's, so he might taste himself. _Hot and bitter and delicious_. He wants Jim to know that, just as he has spread through Jim like darkness, Mycroft has him under his skin now. He'll never get him out-  _we're the same. Isn't that just awful? Disgusting?_

 

Mycroft pulls back to sneer, "You're a lot more fun when you're fighting." but it falls flat. He's flushed and uncomfortable, a steady throbbing against the front of his trousers.

 

Conflicted- he's too conflicted. He knows what he wants Jim to do but the shame is smothering him. He hates but he wants. He's hungry but he's sick. Shame but lust.

 

In the end it is his desire to not show weakness that pushes him on.

 

Mycroft shifts himself a little closer between Jim's thighs and wraps long fingers around thin wrists and places Jim's hands on the front of his trousers, over the pulsing flesh beneath the cloth. 

 

"You can still leave." Mycroft says slowly, wearing a smirk and raising an eyebrow carefully like he's taunting him. Jeering  _coward, run away, show me your weakness, fail._ When really he is begging  _please, run away, allow me your weakness, win._

He doesn't run. He opens Mycroft's trousers and takes his master's weight in his hand, as if judging- deciding if he should, and Mycroft cannot meet his eye. He sucks a sharp breath through his teeth and leans forwards to place his forehead on Jim's shoulder. 

 

" _You can still leave._ " He repeats, like he's trapped in a loop. 

 

Well, that's the thing, he is, isn't he?

*          *          *

_Hush, boy. Hush._ Oh, those words to things to Jim that they shouldn’t. Because that’s what he is, isn’t he? A boy trying to plan a man’s game and failing. He’s back to being the puppet boy who thought he could play the master—but at the end of the day, he is still nothing but a wooden toy.

 

And he can taste himself on Mycroft’s tongue and it tastes like shame and humiliation, because that’s what that was an act of. Mycroft knew all along what Jim’s domination would result in, and so he allowed his submission to gain his control again. _Clever, Mycroft. Clever._

 

_“You’re a lot more fun when you’re fighting.”_ Jim just scoffs quietly at the jeer, shrugging his shoulders. Of course his face is still that of hate, but internally, Jim feels defeated, because how could he possibly win?

 

Jim watches warily from behind his wooden mask as Mycroft edges forward and god he just feels even smaller. Pulling his strings, Jim feels his hands leave the safe place on the floor and come to rest over Mycroft’s groin and well, he shouldn’t be surprised. There is always a price to pay in the games of men—just another thing the little puppet-boy forgot.

 

_“You can still leave.”_ Oh, how smart that would be. In truth, Jim knew that if he had left, he would have won, but what was the price of winning? It was the same as losing.

 

No matter what he did, shame would follow him, whether it took its own form, or the shape of its sister, cowardice. And so Jim unzipped Mycroft’s trousers and shifted through fabric until he was holding him in too-small hands. The heat was so close to setting the puppet-boy aflame when he heard something that sent cool water rushing over him.

 

_“You can still leave.”_ But this time it was different. Mycroft’s head was on his shoulder and the words were…they were a plea. It was quiet and almost hard to hear, but the undertones of a begging man could be heard and Jim’s eyes lit up.

 

Because maybe all wasn’t lost after all. Maybe Mycroft saw this as his own defeat, rather than Jim’s—and if that were the case, didn’t that make Jim the victor? Oh their poem was so twisted and broken that there was no hero or villain—no winner or loser.

 

And maybe Mycroft had the quill that would write out Jim’s life story, but at least he could sway the hand, right?

 

The puppet twisted his head to whisper in the creator’s ear, “Now where would be the fun in that?” and there is defiance laced into every word; defiance against an unspoken plea of _‘Please leave and end this now, because I do not have the strength to do it myself.’_

 

One of his hands slips down to cup Mycroft, while the other slowly teases, feeling all of the ridges and lines. His finger runs over the pulsing vein that runs underneath before coming around to press a finger against the slit at the head.

 

He can feel the delicious way that Mycroft shudders at his touch and it eggs him on further as he wraps his fingers around the creator’s length and strokes slowly, smoothly, lightly at first until the hand grows just a little heavier and the rhythm faster until he can hear Mycroft break and let out small whimpers and moans against his shoulder.

 

He closes his own eyes to the classroom as he feels Mycroft’s hands come to rest on his thighs, lightly gripping at the fabric of his trousers. With that touch, Jim realized he still had power. His tugs and strokes were more assured now, and stronger—confident and eager for the creator to come apart in his wooden hands.

 

“Moan for me, Mycroft,” he purrs into the man’s ear as he presses in that same place that got Jim to cry out earlier, and the results were more than he could have hoped for. It came out as a strangled cry into the fabric of his shirt as fists tightened around Jim’s trousers.

 

He can feel that Mycroft is close—so close. There was the tell-tale twitch and it made Jim positively shiver. Mycroft was trembling lightly as Jim twisted his wrist and added pressure in all the right places. Oh here it was…the moment he’d been waiting for. Jim grinned like the devil as he slid his hand down and pinched at the base, halting the release in its tracks.

 

Jim chuckled as he felt his Master convulse, digging his fingers into Jim’s thighs and biting into his shoulder.

 

“Ah-ah-ah, Mycroft. You didn’t think I would make it easy, did you?” Jim couldn’t believe that he actually thought he’d lost only a few minutes before. He continued to whisper dangerously in Mycroft’s ear. “Oh, no…I want you to _beg_.” Jim dragged his nose down from the other’s ear, nuzzling until he got Mycroft to lift his head out of Jim’s shoulder. He nudged the collar away from Mycroft’s neck and bit down, hard enough to draw blood. Jim licked and sucked at the coppery taste, drawing up a bruise beneath it. Let him try and hide it.

 

A mark for a mark. The master belonged to his puppet as much as the puppet belonged to the master.

*          *          *

_Moan for me, Mycroft_.

 

And he does. Wantonly, shamelessly. Jim's fingers are wicked and they force depraved sounds from Mycroft's throat; who knew hell could be so sweet? He's burning beneath Jim's fingertips in the worst way, and he likes it. It's driving him to the edge, only seconds before he falls. 

 

But suddenly it is as if he's become tangled in his own puppet's strings, obeying the will of a boy as Jim halt's his release and he jerks forwards, biting Jim's shoulder just to stop the cry of almost-pain. 

   
 _Ah-ah-ah, Mycroft. You didn’t think I would make it easy, did you? Oh, no…I want you to beg._  
   
Jim sinks his teeth into Mycroft's throat hard. The rational part of Mycroft, the part that registers blood trickling beneath his shirt, assess the damage- healing time, three weeks, probably visible above the collar, scarring... most likely. But the part that rules Mycroft in Jim's presence, the animal, just feels teeth- He's marking you, you're his.  
   
And then Mycroft is gasping and struggling for air against Jim's shoulder, but every time he breathes he is just taking on water. Drowning. No matter how hard he seems to kick he cannot get his head above the surface, and it's not that Jim is above him, holding his head, it's that he is below, dragging him down by his ankle. We drown together.   
   
Humiliation is almost no problem now because he just wants to breathe again.  
   
"Please." His voice comes out hoarser than intended, shaky and weak, into Jim's shoulder. Not content, Jim pulls his head back and Mycroft thinks he says something- again, again his lips form the words, mouth tugged into a vicious grin- but he can't hear it for the blood pounding in his ears.   
   
"Please." It's a child's voice this time, almost a cry. Most certainly a plea.   
   
"Was that so hard?" Jim says, barking with laughter and if Mycroft was in a better frame of mind he would wring the life from him, but Jim is moving his hands again, destroying Mycroft with simple strokes. With barely the flick of a wrist.   
   
He finishes with a groan, a horrible noise- ungraceful and raw-, and empties his sin over Jim, thighs and stomach and fingers. He tries not to think about how disgusting this how- how disgusting _they_ are.   
   
Jim's smile is sharp, jagged- a knife- and as he leans forwards to press a chaste kiss to Mycroft's mouth- like a seal of victory- he can taste his own blood on the lips that marred his throat. He squeezes his eyes shut and wills this moment away. And when it's over he pulls himself up and fumbles with his trousers, pushing Jim back down the wall when he tries to stand. If he has nothing he has this is, Jim at his feet.   
   
"I suppose you think you've won this round." Mycroft drones and Jim grins like he knows he has, Mycroft laughs bitterly, the sound falling from his lips like acid, "You idiot boy." Because he's still a boy. They can fuck and curse until the devil owns their souls but, Jim will still be a child and Mycroft barely more than that. "Look at yourself." He's on the floor, slicked with sweat and Mycroft's seed, "Look at me. We're neither of us going to come out victorious in this. Trapped in a stale mate."  
   
"Then why don't you forfeit the game?" Jim calls as Mycroft walks away.   
   
And Mycroft turns back to smile with thin lips and a melancholy look in his eyes, "Why don't you?" Jim snaps his mouth shut, "Exactly. I'll see you soon, Jim."


	13. Chapter Thirteen

The fall of man, they say, was delivered upon the hiss of a serpent. The devil, who crawled on his stomach and offered man forbidden fruit. And man took it because man was weak. 

 

Mycroft Holmes' fall from grace is quick and painful and he is pushed by a serpent disguised as a boy- or is it the other way around, Mycroft still cannot decide- who offers him the ultimate temptation. A body to make his own, a mind to manipulate, a child to destroy. 

   
Mycroft stands in the mirror that night, watching the man staring back at him. It's like he's eleven again and there is someone who resembles him but isn't really him. His eyes are the same shade of blue, but they're harder- colder than Mycroft ever remembers seeing on himself. The man's mouth seemed to be perpetually downturned in the corners, his skin pale and the angles of his face sharp and shadowed like a story book villain. There's a mark on his neck, raw and bruised, and he presses two fingers to it like taking his pulse, wincing at the glorious pain. 

   
The man in the mirror looks broken. A poor satire of a human being. 

   
Mycroft's fall is quick and painful and it leaves him hardly a man at all. 

   
Over the course of a month, three significant things happen to Mycroft Holmes. 

   
The first is that he falls into twisted routine, with his parody of a lover, - they become a poem with half rhyme- a routine of bitter mocking and spilt blood and bruised lips. 

   
One of Mycroft's favourite encounters is during Jim's P.E. lesson, when Mycroft is sitting beneath a tree watching him from over a book and his throat feels a little dry because the boy is wearing shorts that are far too small. Jim notices- of course he does, nothing escapes him- and comes over to sneer at Mycroft about how he is such a fucking pervert or something just as eloquent. And, leading him away from prying eyes, Mycroft proves him right. Against a tree until Jim is trembling and sweating and half sobbing stop and half moaning more. Jim goes back to his lesson with a blush on high cheekbones and head down and is given detention for skipping. Mycroft laughs at him from behind his book. He can't remember what he was reading. 

   
Mycroft wins that round.

   
One of Mycroft's least favourite encounters is Jim's rebuttal to that very incident. He slinks into Mycroft's bedroom one midnight, a shadow but for a white grin glinting in moonlight that isn't there. Jim climbs atop Mycroft before he can protest and carefully rolls his hips against the older man's until he's panting beneath him, hard and aching. And he makes him beg. Again. And he begs. Again. He would a million times, take every ounce of humiliation, for Jim fucking Moriarty. But Jim just smirks, pressing a kiss to Mycroft's forehead in a cruel imitation of their first night, and leaves his paramour to finish alone.

 

Jim wins that round.

   
Mycroft never lets Jim take him- the prospect is demeaning- and the one time he tries, forcing Mycroft's cheek into the tile of his own bathroom floor, Mycroft forces him onto his back with a growl. And with a wicked smirk on his lips he pulls Jim's tie from his neck and ties it around his wrists. And now Mycroft literally has him on strings. 

   
 _Oh, my little puppet. He_ purrs and it is just a step too far for Jim who fights against his restraints, cursing like a sailor and Mycroft kisses the profanity from his mouth with a _Hush, my boy_. When that doesn't silence him, Mycroft undoes his own tie with steady fingers and silences Jim on his behalf with an expensive silk gag. He stops fighting soon enough, anger replaced with hungry gasping. 

   
Mycroft wins that round. 

   
Mycroft hates the sounds Jim makes- everything from the jeering laughter to the desperate moans. And Jim knows. So one afternoon, when the boy’s dorms are deserted for lunch, oh does Jim cry. Shudder inducing, skin crawling sounds are wrenched from Jim's throat and Mycroft almost has to stop them because it's like nails down a blackboard. He can't explain his hatred for that voice other than that it is the one he hears singing mockingly in his dreams. Other than he knows it will be the last voice he ever hears.   
  


Jim wins that round.  
  


They fuck- because there really is no other word for it- almost every day for a month. Sometimes it's just teasing fingers with wicked words and sometimes it is burying deep and drawing blood with hardly a word exchanged at all. But it's always painful, and there is always a loser. Because pain begets pain and neither will stop while the other is ahead.

   
It is their month of sex and blood that lead to Mycroft's second significant change. His first addiction. 

   
It consumes him slowly, over weeks, a gentle flame at first being passed over his skin but too soon a famished fire, eating at him.

 

Eventually every time he touches Jim is like pulling a noose closer- a little closer to his neck. Killing himself for this boy.

 

He marks every inch of Jim's skin- _mine, mine, mine_ \- with desperate lips and tongue and teeth. It's like he can't taste enough, will never have enough of his flesh.  
  


He can even sleep now- the want and the guilt have not ebbed any, but he has grown accustomed to their constant anguished cries- but he wakes up with Jim's name pressed to the crease of his lips like a prayer.  
  


Addicted. He's addicted to Jim Moriarty.   
  


The final change is that Mycroft takes up smoking. As if this self-prescribed drug- medicine will cure him of some unseen illness. It doesn't- it's just another addiction and just as the other it is silently killing him. Only he can feel this killing him, see it in stained fingers and shaking hands, which makes him feel as though he has some control- some hollow sense of power over his destruction that he realises he does not have with Jim and his poisonous blood. 

   
 _You'll be the death of me_. He sighs against Jim's back in a moment of horrendous clarity.

   
 _That's the plan._ He returns in a monotone and Mycroft believes that he will actually die by Jim's hand.

   
Despite it all, Mycroft is not ready for rehabilitation yet. The high he gets from dominating and being dominated by someone as brilliant as him is too satisfying to relinquish.

  
It is Mycroft's second addiction that leads him to his first on the day that he is finally cut off from his supply.

  
Mycroft is waiting for the courtyard to clear so he can light a cigarette when Jim passes by his alcove. He jumps from his seat and catches Jim's elbow- this is the gentlest touch that passes between them without being mocking- to grab his attention. 

  
"Jim," is all Mycroft says- is all he needs to say. 

*          *          *

As a child, Jim was always one to try and measure his growth—to count the ticks of his height on the wall in the desperate desire to grow up and be rid of his childhood. He wants to forge his own path; he wants to be free from the mistakes of his parents and to become something fantastic.

 

Of course his mother never liked Jim drawing on the walls. She would wash off the ticks and every time she did, Jim felt as if his prison sentence would last even longer. As a prisoner tallies his days, months, and years on the wall of his cell, Jim ticks his height, waiting to be free from the bars he imagines on his window.

 

And so Jim found a new place to hide his ticks. Once a week, Jim would shove over his wardrobe and reveal the hidden lines, as tightly packed as a barcode.

 

Because that’s the thing about growing—it goes so slow that you can’t see it happen. Of course some obscure relative would follow social order and stop by for the required polite visit. They would pat Jim on the head and say, ‘My you’ve grown,’ and Jim would smile. Inside, he imagined what it would feel like to kill them where they stood.

 

As Jim grew, so did his imagination. See, for most children, when they grow up, their ability to create fantastical worlds and ideas dies and becomes practical. Jim was the opposite. His ability to invent and create was his gift. He loved stories and fairy tales, but not the usual kind children fancied. No, Jim imagined tales of death and anguish and the more he grew up around hate, the more fuel it added to the fires of his mind.

 

And one day, everything changed. See, Jim kept a little notebook behind his wardrobe with all of the ticks. His father had long since left two years prior and by sixteen, Jim had lost almost all of the naivety that he should have had. His mother had ventured into his room trying to straighten up when she noticed the corner of the book edging out from behind the furniture. Putting her weight into her shoulder, she pushed it over and took in the hundreds of little lines climbing up the wall and the book, which had fallen flat on the floor.

 

When Jim came home from classes that day, he found her scrubbing the ticks off of the wall—every last one blurred into the next. Years and years of his life reduced to nothing. His eyes darted to the book, open on the bed to a page that told the story of the death of a whore. Despite her occupation, she wasn’t stupid. She knew what it was really about.

 

 _I should be ashamed for what I’ve written, you say? Well I am a product of your filth and hate—of Da’s filth and hate. That book is what I am and it is what you made me to be. You, mammy, should be ashamed, not me._  His voice was cold as he spoke those words to her.

 

 _You’re a monster! A freak!_  She cursed back to him.  _I won’t have the devil’s spawn in my house—not any more. Your Da is gone—good riddance—and now I will be rid of his brood_

 

And in that one day, Jim grew more than he had his entire childhood. He didn’t see it though…he had no wall to measure it on and nothing to compare it too. He was cast to the streets and condemned to death by his own mother. The irony. All he had was the years he felt fall off of his lifespan with every passing day. A small part of him knew he would die young.

 

Eventually, he found Saint Bartholomew’s and met his foil and his mirror, all in one man. This man reduced him from the man Jim had always been at heart to nothing but a boy. Was it possible to age backwards? Maybe it was.

 

Jim knew that if he ticked his growth on the wall over the past month, it likely wouldn’t change—not because he hadn’t grown, but because puppets cannot grow. He was just another character in his stories. He looked back now, and imagined how he’d write the tale of the little puppet boy and his submission to the Puppet Master; the King

 

_His Puppet Master._

 

_His King._

 

The tale would tell of boy, cold and dark, pale and sickly, and how a rich King came to find him hiding in his court. It would tell of how he sewed strings into the puppet’s skin and made it dance for the court. However, the puppet wasn’t entirely a victim, because the boy still had a brain that could not be controlled by a single string. It would tell of how the boy noticed the King’s dependence on the puppet’s company and how the puppet learned to make the King dance for him without him even realizing it.

 

But this puppet’s tale is drawing to a close. See, the Puppet Master and King reached out and touched the wood of his pet’s skin, rather than tugged at a string and he awoke a new kind of life in him.

 

Jim stopped at Mycroft’s touch, and he imagined scribbling into his book in time with his life, not noticing that he was running out of pages.

 

But, for the first time, Jim was going to deny Mycroft. This was the plot twist, right? The decision that sparks off the conclusion of the novel? Oh, if it were only so simple.

 

“I can’t. I have lessons and I’ll be damned if I skip  _again_  because of you.” Jim watched Mycroft blink at him in surprise.

 

“I’m sorry, what?” Mycroft asked, probably shocked that Jim actually denied him.

 

“You heard me. Not now,” Jim asserted, though he was taken aback. See, he expected Mycroft’s usual scoff and snide comment, but they did not come. Instead, the older boy flashed a look of…was it dejection? He raised his eyebrow and the look vanished from Mycroft’s face. Jim half wondered if he’d even seen it.

 

“Whatever,” Mycroft said coldly, turning from him and lighting his cigarette without another word.

 

Usually, Mycroft would push him against a wall and do it anyway, so why not now? Why would he let his puppet go rather than tug at his strings? Jim pondered the thought as he wandered off to class.

 

Mrs Hudson then started in on her lecture about tragedy. She spoke on the elements that drove a tragedy and how Shakespeare utilized them in his plays. Jim listened and silently drew parallels between the stories of a bard of so many years ago, to the events in his life now.

 

But that was nothing new. Jim always knew that his time with Mycroft would eventually end in some brutal tragedy. That’s the thing about time, though, is you never know how much of it you have left until it’s gone.

 

After the three hours, Jim strode down the halls, taking turns that, while put him on a longer route, took him away from the crowds and the bullies and gave him time to appreciate the quiet that his life had come to lack with his new Master.

 

Jim hadn’t been surprised when he turned down a hallway and saw Mycroft leaning against a row of lockers. He knew all of the paths Jim took to and from classes and these were the places where Jim was usually ambushed.

 

“Hello, Mycroft,” he said, formally as they always did in public. But then Mycroft’s eyes darted up and in them, Jim saw…relief. Conscious, notable,  _relief_. And then it all clicked in his head. There was a price to the magic the King used to sew the strings into his puppet’s arms. Every time he tugged and pulled at them—every time he made his puppet dance—the strings were sewn into his skin as well, tying them together forever. The strings became knotted and now, when Jim moved his arm, Mycroft’s arm moved with it.

 

Mirrors with a distorted image.

 

There was a power in this that Jim hadn’t anticipated. While Jim was addicted to the game, Mycroft had become addicted to him, and addicts will do anything to get another fix. Jim grinned as the epiphany dawned and he came to stop in front of his creator.

 

“So…what game are we playing today?” Jim asked with teasing, seductive smile, as he ran his hands up Mycroft’s thighs.

 

This was it, the moments before the climax. The breath before the kiss of death would strike his lips. Had they both walked away, maybe,  _maybe_ , they could have had a chance at their satire of a happy ending, but then again, Fate was a cruel mistress and always exacted her price for playing the game. 

 

And oh, was Fate playing a game with them.


	14. Chapter Fourteen

Mycroft Holmes has always taken silent pride in his brain. 

 

Where other humans' minds run in crudely drawn pictures and an indecipherable mess of numbers and letters, Mycroft's mind is a flawless machine. It runs seamlessly; everything obsessively stored and acutely remembered. It's beautiful in a cold, sterile kind of way. 

 

But Jim makes Mycroft feel  _fractured_. Renders him useless, renders him absolutely ordinary. 

 

Every touch is Jim taking another part from his mind, as if he is nothing more than a puzzle for Jim to play with. One that he will never piece back together. 

 

Mycroft thought he would relish in the moments they were apart and take some solace in the peace of his solitude. But in the silence the white noise is deafening and he longs for the pounding of blood in his ears, the rush of it in his veins like waves crashing against the shore of him, that he feels when Jim is on his skin. 

 

Mycroft is dependent on Jim Moriarty. He is his drug. 

 

So when Jim denies him his fix it tilts his entire world on its axis. He feels dizzy and sick, feverish in a moment, but he keeps himself as composed as he can and sneers  _Whatever_  like a petulant child. Bringing a cigarette to his lips he takes a deep drag of his slow death as he watches Jim walk away. Nicotine is a poor replacement for whatever high it is Jim supplies and it doesn't stop his fingers from trembling.

 

Shaking. That's the first sign he ignores. 

 

He focuses on the wall during his first class, carefully following the lines of the ancient brick with his eyes. They're like a maze, the lines between the stone, and every corner he turns leads to a dead end. He feels trapped within the wall and when he feels panic rising in his chest he takes a moment to use that logic he prides himself on.

 

_Oh, Charlotte Perkins would turn in her grave if she could hear your thoughts. You're not going to start following the pattern of the wall are you, muttering hysterically and claiming it 'smells of red', are you?_

 

_No. No, of course not._

 

_Well then. Stop it now._

 

He does stop, but only because he is sure he can hear sniggering from behind him. It sounds like  _his_ laugh, sickeningly soft and mocking. 

 

_No one is laughing at you._

 

_No. No, of course not._

 

Mycroft spends the rest of his day chanting  _I'm fine. I'm fine._ like it is his mantra. But it is a lie. 

 

One day sober and Mycroft's body is screaming at him for the next fix. He has to admit what is happening to him-  _lie to others, not to yourself._  

 

The symptoms are all there. Insomnia, shaking, hallucinations, paranoia. Delirium Tremens.

 

A constant supply of his drug for weeks only for a sudden and abrupt halt. He's an addict in withdrawal.

 

God how he hates this feeling of dependence. So fucking weak. 

 

Mycroft waits for Jim on the route he knows he has to take to get back to the dorms, tapping his foot impatiently.

 

Tap tap. Tap tap. 

 

The monotonous sound echoing down the hallway begins to ring in his ears like the tick of a clock.

 

Tap tap. Tick tock. 

 

He tries not to think about how their time is ticking away with every moment. How the pages of their twisted tale are running few- fewer than Mycroft or Jim really understand. 

 

Tick tock. Tick-

 

 _Hello, Mycroft_ he hears that soft voice, his broken lullaby, the sound another mark for his track lines. An injection of the most potent opiate into his system. Mycroft's abatement must be palpable and he knows it's foolish to allow such emotions to surface but in the rush he does not care. He thinks he could just take Jim against the lockers of the hall when he runs his hands up trembling thighs with a purr of  _So…what game are we playing today?_

 

Mycroft clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth as in thought- this is their foreplay, no gentle fingers and sweet kisses, just agonising taunts- and cocks his head like a predator, humming, "I think you've kept me waiting far too long. I don't think you deserve a bed. Let's find somewhere a little more uncomfortable." Then he murmurs with dark, hooded eyes, "Follow me." 

 

The truth is that he doesn't think he can make it back to their dorms- his heart fluttering in his chest as it is, like a hummingbird's, and just promising to break free if he doesn't have Jim now-  _now._ So he leads Jim through a network of halls, stopping every few moments to turn and catch unsuspecting lips and get another shot of that awful thing he craves to allow him to take a few more steps, deeper and deeper into the heart of his maze. And if Jim never finds his way out again, is trapped in the hollow of this school with his monster, then that suits Mycroft just fine. 

 

They reach a deserted hall and Mycroft holds open the door of a bathroom for Jim, waving him in gracefully ever the jeering gentleman. 

 

Jim scoffs. 

 

Mycroft shoves him to the wall the second the door swings shut, pressing their bodies flush together. It would not matter if they were skin to skin, every inch touching, Mycroft doesn't think he'll ever be close enough. 

 

It is one of  _those_ days, with hardly a word. Just teeth and skin. Mycroft's lips drop to Jim's neck, he knows that just a few inches further, bellow the collar, he'd find a smattering of pearl shaped marks. A necklace of fingertip bruises around Jim's neck marking his possession. But there is no time to take in his work, or renew the bruises. 

 

Mycroft needs to take Jim.

 

It's inelegant and mechanical and vulgar but in the moment Mycroft does not care- they are not lover in the throes of passion, this is sex and it is addiction- he feels nothing but the rush as he bends Jim over the sink and pulls his trousers over his legs. Feels nothing but blood boiling as he positions himself at Jim's entrance and intrudes the younger man's body, sinking to the hilt with a gasp. 

 

He counts the thrum of Jim's pulse that reverberates through him, timing his movements to each beat until he feels like he's fucking a metronome. Short, staccato thrusts like counting the seconds down to release, their bodies the hands of a clock. Ticking down.

 

Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock. 

 

It's all ragged breathing and muffled moans and fingers digging into hips. 

 

Tick Tock. Tick tock. 

 

Mycroft leans over Jim's body and brushes his lips along the nape of his neck.

 

Tick tock. 

 

Jim is forcing himself back into Mycroft's body now and his strangled groan masks the sound of the door swinging open.

 

Tick-

 

"Mycroft Holmes!?"

 

Their time is up. Their story over. Their bodies freeze into an ugly tableaux as they run out of words to finish their tale, run out of seconds to take them out of this one suffocating moment. 

 

_Fuck._

 

Mycroft sees the rest of the scene unfold- in horrid grey scale like he's watching a bad film- not as himself but as an unseen observer. 

 

The boys scramble apart, covering themselves and having at least the decency to blush. There's an awful lot of yelling from the professor that caught them, and awful lot of _Sir. Sir, please calm down._ from the older man and nothing at all from the younger who stands emotionless, though a ghastly shade of white. Ten minutes later and this scene is getting repetitive,  _disgusting, shameful, and the head boy no less. I expected better of you Mycroft Holmes. As for you boy_ \- he clearly can't remember the other's name-  _you too should be ashamed. Disgusted._

 

"The Headmaster has already left for the day, but I expect to see both of you outside off his door at seven sharp." The teacher snaps, finished with his rant, "And if I were you, I would think about packing my bags."

 

As soon as the door clicks shut, the full force of what has just happened hits Mycroft in the gut and he throws himself at the nearest sink, retching into it and gripping the sides with white knuckles.  

*          *          *

Jim gives a small nod when Mycroft barks out to follow him, because he knows how these scenes play out by heart now.

 

He follows Mycroft down different hallways and in circles to a bathroom in a lesser-used part of the school where Jim was then pressed against a wall—a puppet swung by his strings—and swallowed by a kiss. Nothing is different. Nothing is new. This is just a re-write of past events.

 

But as a secret writer, Jim knows that every good story needs a plot twist that will jar the reader. It has to be unexpected. It has to be traumatic. It has to lead to a choice or what is the point in writing the story to begin with?

 

Mycroft whirls his puppet around, bending him, face down, over the sinks; lips and teeth and tongue teasing the back of Jim’s neck, making him shiver and moan. Jim’s pants are wrenched down to pool at his ankles and Mycroft’s length is grinding behind him as a tease and a threat.

 

Jim could hear his moans echo back at him off of the ceramic sink, mocking him, but Jim doesn’t care because he learned something today—Mycroft Holmes  _needed_  him,  _craved_  him,  _desired_  him more than Jim ever thought he could.

 

Jim is just a boy with Mycroft, more a child with him than he ever was at home, but something happens that forces him to grow even faster than the day he was kicked to the streets.

You see, as Mycroft drives into Jim, who tries desperately to choke back a cry, neither hear the door open behind them.

 

And now the reader would cringe because of the dramatic irony.  _‘Turn around!’_  The reader would want to scream, because they can see the character’s fall before they can and it drives the reader mad.  _‘Turn around! Run. Stop. God no, don’t!’_  But the reader is helpless and they know that the book is near its end. Here is the climax, the point of no return. The characters—the puppet and his Master—cannot hear the reader’s cries, and even if they could, there is nowhere to run.

 

And when both boys hear the gasp of shock behind them, they both age into men in the time it takes the heart to beat.

 

When Jim wrote his stories, they were different than all of the fairy tales other children his age read.

 

Jim’s stories never ended in a  _happily ever after._  

 

Some teacher scolds the two of them and Jim mechanically pulled up his pants, staring into the man’s eyes in a dead sort of way. He can see the man’s lips moving, almost feel the vibration of the words in the air around him, but he cannot hear them. Some words drift through… _Headmaster…Seven am…pack my bags…_ And they bring Jim’s world crashing down around him.

 

This was it. He always knew he would die early, but he didn’t think it would be like this. He’d be sent back out and all that waited for him out there were cold, empty, streets. Of course he could find a job, but no place that would pay enough for him to be able to afford a place to live. And it was winter no less.

 

He was damned no matter what happened tomorrow. They could make it short and quick—expel him and let the axe come down swiftly—or they could make it long and drawn out—deny his scholarship and laugh as he tried to beg for it back. Of course the Headmaster knew he couldn’t afford the tuition here and it was too late to apply to any other school for a scholarship for the season. The Headmaster would condemn him to the streets and laugh as he begged.

 

Because Jim didn’t matter. He was inconsequential. If he died, no one would know or care. No one would miss him; hell, his mam wouldn’t even know either way.

 

No one cared. No one knew that Jim Moriarty existed, except for

 

 _Oh_. __

This was his last chance—his last hope. Oh, the irony of it all! It was so fucking poetic, wasn’t it? The man who condemned him to this fate was also his only chance at salvation.

 

Jim turned to see his creator retching into the sink he had just bent over, knowing those same acoustics that mocked Jim’s moans now mocked Mycroft’s pain. Seeing him like this made Jim want to strike him across the face and scream.

 

_What right do you have to cry and moan?! Your dad just has to write you a fucking cheque and you’re set. No one would ever fucking know! I’m the one who should be curled in a fucking corner because my life is OVER and all because of YOU!_

But that won’t do anything to help him. Mycroft didn’t care about sympathy. He could take Jim’s virtue without batting a lash, so how hard would it be for him to condemn him to death? Maybe a sleepless night? No, Jim had to be clever now. Mycroft was addicted to everything Jim could give him and that was to his advantage.

 

Jim laid a tentative hand on Mycroft’s arm, his face horror-stricken. “M-Mycroft…” he started, making his voice broken and terrified. He had to beg. He had to beg and plead and hell, he’d get on his knees if he had to—anything to appeal to his creator’s god complex.

 

The light hand turned to a trembling grip, his whole body shaking as he fell to his knees at Mycroft’s feet. Jim pressed his forehead into Mycroft’s thigh, reaching up with his other hand to grip at Mycroft’s shirt. “Please,” he begged. “Please…you have to help me. I’ll do anything. I’ll let you do anything to me to pay off the debt I’d owe you just  _please._ ” Jim was sick with how pathetic he sounded. Emotion choked his voice, making it thick.

 

He looked up, his eyes glassy and desperate, wide with fear. Mycroft reached down and pulled Jim to his feet, eyeing him with so many emotions that Jim honestly couldn’t tell if he was buying the act. Jim  _did_  notice, however, the grip that still remained on his arms—touch. Just Jim’s touch was enough to confuse Mycroft and that was perfect.

 

Jim still shook, eyes as wide and imploring as a child afraid of the monster under his bed. Funnily enough, Jim was clinging to that monster right now as if his life depended on it.

 

Oh wait—it  _did_.

 

Jim feigned weakness in his knees and leaned against Mycroft, using him for support, bracing himself by balling the man’s shirt in his fists. He rested his forehead against Mycroft’s chest and his shoulders shook. “Y-you’re not going to let them expel you. You can afford to pay them off and sweep it under the rug. I-I have nothing. I’ll be kicked out—probably banned from the premises. I can’t afford to pay them…I have nowhere to go.” Jim’s voice broke on the last word, muffled in Mycroft’s shirt and body, trembling, pressed flush against Mycroft’s.

 

“I will do anything you ask to pay off my debt—you can do anything, just…please Mycroft…just add my name to the cheque.” Jim ventured to look up at Mycroft, waiting for an answer.

 

Their story may be dwindling to an end, but Jim was going to milk out every last drop of ink from the well and every last inch of their pages. Jim wasn’t ready for it all to end…and maybe he’d never be ready, but he couldn’t give up—wouldn’t.

 

Jim Moriarty would do  _anything_  to survive. 


	15. Chapter Fifteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To avoid confusion to the reader, I’ll say ahead of time, this entire chapter is Mycroft’s perspective. The next (and final) chapter of The Two Kings will be in Jim’s perspective. Here we are at the conclusion and my cowriter and I would like to genuinely thank everyone who has followed us this far. All of the reviews, kind words, and speculations have been incredibly helpful and encouraging. We were unsure about posting the story, but the overwhelming praise has reassured us that we did the right thing, and we thank each and every reader for that. Enough from me—Enjoy!

_And the pauper fell to the King’s feet, crying and begging and pleading._

_The King held the sword in his hand, weighing it on his fingers as if weighing what sentence should be served. All the while the boy still cried and cried and cried, wailing like one of the dead, but it wasn’t real and the King knew it._

 

_The King was going to bring the sword down on his subject no matter what, but would he bring it down lightly, so the boy would rise as a knight, or swiftly, and take off his head?_

 

_The court screamed for his mercy but they did not understand what this child was. A child only in appearance because beneath the skin lived a devil, one that had possessed the mighty King for far too long. One that had blackened the King’s soul._

 

_And now the King had him at his mercy._

 

_This was all he had ever wanted, to hold the power of life and death over his demon. And now he did. He had everything. The King had won._

 

_The why could he not bring down the sword? Did the demon still affect him, did he still seep poison into the King as he clutched at his heart with pleading hands?_

 

_Spare him or kill him. Spare him or kill him._

 

 Mycroft pulls himself from Jim’s grasp, wiping his face of all those conflicting emotions- because he is too fucking conflicted- and throwing up that porcelain mask. Jim, sensing Mycroft’s retreat, pushes even harder than before, stepping forward as Mycroft steps back. Dancing a dangerous dance.

 

 He presses frantic, desperate kisses along Mycroft’s jaw line and throat- a man possessed- punctuating each press of lips with a breathless _please._ On the verge of sobbing but still running his hands up Mycroft’s chest.

 

  _Please. Please. Please._ Like he’s stuck on a loop but Mycroft can barely hear him, can barely think with fingers creeping beneath his shirt, burning him. He cannot concentrate with Jim on his skin, it slows his mind; a drug, but he cannot breathe without him. So he has a choice. Fall to the will of this child or let him fall and drown without him?

 

 “Get off.” Mycroft growls, but Jim is persistent, intent on clouding his mind with suffocating lips, “GET OFF.”

 

 He pushes Jim away this time and he hits the wall behind him with violent force, limbs flailing about him- a broken doll. Jim falls to the floor, as if Mycroft has just dropped the strings holding him up, and looks up at Mycroft through dark lashes. He looks as shattered as Mycroft feels, only his pain is not real.

 

 “M-mycroft? Plea-” Jim whimpers.

 

“Shut up. S _hut up_ will you and let me think? Just, be quiet, hush…” He trails off, running his fingers back through his hair and muttering _hush_ as if deranged.

 

His thoughts are fractured, lost in a sea of emotion, but those that surface are all the same.

 

  _You need him. Look at you, you’re shaking because he’s not touching you. How will you survive without him?_  And louder than all other thoughts just- _Save him. Save him. Save him._

 

 “I’ll put your name on the cheque.” Mycroft finally says, face blank- emotionless- and Jim breathes an audible sigh of release.

 

 Mycroft opens the door and this is just another repeat of a scene they’ve played over too many times; Mycroft leaving half broken and Jim on the floor. He turns one last time and smirks at the boy on the floor.

 

 "Don’t beg, Jim, it doesn’t suit you.”

 ---

 He doesn’t want to use a school phone to ask for the money, to stand in the open telling his mother about how he'd been caught fucking a boy over the sinks in a bathroom.  So he walks to the nearest town, down country lanes in his school uniform, tie hanging from his neck like a noose. His fingers play with the knot as he goes and he briefly flirts with the idea of just tightening it a little too much…

 

 It starts snowing. Fitting.

 

 By the time Mycroft reaches an old red phone box on the edge of town his shirt is sticking to his skin and he’s shivering against the rain though he doesn’t feel any colder than usual.  He steps in and pushes some change into the machine.

 

 Punching in a number, he calls that house he takes part time residence in- he can hardly call it a home now, can he?

 

 “Hello?” A familiar voice chirps.

 

 "Mummy, it's Mycroft." he says in a monotone, being a mother was nothing to be proud of in his house so 'mummy' was a taunt rather than a term of endearment.

 

"What is it?" she snaps and he hears her set something down, a hairbrush, then the telltale jingle of her fingering jewellery at her neck. So she is going out. She has no friends to go out with, Mycroft knows, so she has a _lover_. Mycroft has to bite back a scoff of derision; there was a reason he was fundamentally unlovable, he learnt from the best.  

 

"I need you to wire me some money."

 

"Have I not already sent your allowance?" 

 

"Yes, yes you have." Mycroft sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose, "I am in some trouble at school; the threat of expulsion looming." 

 

"Oh, I see." there is no surprise in her voice. No disappointment. Mycroft has never set a foot out of line in his life before now, but his mother had been prepared for this moment since the day he told her that makeup wasn’t going to make Daddy love her any more, wasn’t going to make him stop seeing those other women, when he was five years old.

 

_Your father's son_. rings in his ears, an echo of his mother's voice, a stock phrase she has recycled through the years. 

 

Daddy was bitter and ruthless when he was alive but powerful and clever. The kind of man Mycroft had always wanted to be- the cliché _be careful what you wish for_ has never been more applicable. But Mycroft's mother had not meant it as a compliment. The first time she had said it was when Mycroft was thirteen, he cannot even recall what she believed he had done but he remembers her raising a hand to strike him. He didn’t even flinch, too used to it by then, he held her gaze with hard, unforgiving eyes and it made her stop in her tracks. _You’re your father’s son alright._ She had sneered, dropping her hand. She never hit him again. But she hardly ever looked at him again either, because Mycroft was his father’s son and Mummy hated Daddy.

 

 Over the phone, Mycroft’s mother rattles off a few numbers and each time Mycroft refutes her – _No. Higher. I’m going to need more._ \- until she huffs and finally cracks, asking him _what exactly is it that you have done_? He explains vaguely, voice thick in his throat, but even she isn’t an idiot.

 

 She’s silent for a long time. While he waits, Mycroft presses two fingers to his wrist to check if his heart is still beating; it is. A shame.

 

 “Three figures then?” She finally says, she sounds half dead.

 

 “I think that would be for the best.”

 

 “It will be in your account by tomorrow morning.”

 

 “Thank you.”

 

 He’s about to hang up when she speaks one last time.

 

 “Don’t come home for Christmas, Mycroft.” And she leaves him the dial tone, like the flat line of a heart monitor.

 

 The sun has disappeared over the horizon, leaving Mycroft in the dark but for the single fluorescent light flickering above the phone. His knees buckle and he slides down the phone box, sitting on the floor with his knees curled up to his chest.

 

 For the longest time Mycroft just sucks ragged breath through his teeth until his heartbeat evens out.

 

 Finally, his mind is clear enough to think about what he is going to do. Idly, he fingers the cheque in his pocket- a hefty sum, enough to buy a new wing of dorms for the school. It is made out to the Headmaster, from Mycroft Holmes and Jim Moriarty.

 

  _I’ll let you do anything to me to pay off the debt I’d owe you._

 

The words had passed over his head earlier, too delirious to actually register anything but the pleading inflection of Jim’s voice, but he hears them now.

 

He understands them now. He was going to  _buy_ Jim.

 

He would own him. Physically own him. And isn’t that everything he has ever wanted? For Jim Moriarty to belong to him, for those invisible strings to become real so that he could make the bastard dance?

 

Mycroft could not have planned it better. Jim is his-  _his_.

 

Then why does he feel so sick?

 

Mycroft has not felt remorse for their  _relationship_ so far, so why now?

 

Maybe it is just withdrawal again. Too long away from his favourite drug. If he bought Jim, he’d never have to go without again. This would never end. Their story would never end.

 

This pain would never end. And Mycroft would not be alone again but he would be trapped with the one person who made him weak forever. Sewing their skin together for good.

 

_I can’t do this._ Mycroft thinks.

 

With trembling fingers, Mycroft moves to cut Jim’s strings. To free them both from each other.

 

And he thinks that he might be ending a life in the process, sending a boy to the streets and it stalls him for a moment. But just for the time it takes for a heart to beat, before he remembers that he is a monster, a villain, and he does not care who he burns-  _just keep on telling yourself that, it will get easier._

 

_And with a sigh of remorse, the mighty King brought his sword down swiftly on the boy’s neck._

 

_Off with his head._

 

He ends their story.

 

Mycroft strikes Jim’s name from the cheque.


	16. Chapter Sixteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit where Credit is due: "Thistle and Weeds" - Mumford and Sons.

Jim stared at the ceiling of his bedroom. It would be alright in the end. It had to be. Mycroft was going to put his name on the cheque. So what if he was essentially selling himself to him? Mycroft basically owned his soul by now, so why not his body? But if he didn’t stay here and get an education, he was never going to be able to survive in the world. No job would pay him enough to live without at least a basic education no matter how clever he was.

 

No. Jim shook his head, because he didn’t have to worry about it. This is all Mycroft ever wanted—to own him completely—and he wouldn’t pass up that opportunity. When he closed his eyes and sleep took him, he was confident, though his dreams thought otherwise.

 

_A little puppet boy stares up at the tall, looming, gates of Saint Bartholomew’s Academy, locked and barred to him forever. His wooden skin shivers against the elements; his strings cut and blowing in the winter gusts. He’s small—so small—and only a child. There is laughter on the wind that swirls around him. Fear makes the puppet boy stagger back, landing in the cold snow, who’s moisture seeps through the wood of his flesh; internalizing the cold that was to come. The laughter gets louder and louder in his ears and he tries to cover them, but it’s still echoing in his head until a shadow blocks the light. Glass eyes look up and take in the form of his creator, his master, and he’s laughing at him._

 

_“Did you think I cared for you, my silly little toy?” Oh, and the puppet will never forget that voice._

 

_“You’re not real. You don’t deserve the same chance at life that real boys do.”_

 

_“Please,” he begged, never more sincere in his life. “Please save me.”_

 

_The master just laughed cruelly before turning on his heel and walking towards the gates, disappearing into nothing, leaving the puppet boy so terrifyingly alone._

 

Jim darted awake, sitting up and panting and sweating. His eyes darted over to the clock that came with his room where red numbers glared 6:03 AM. Taking a few shallow breaths, Jim eased out of bed and walked to the showers.

 

He got ready mechanically that day, combing his hair slowly and brushing his teeth thoroughly. He stood in front of the mirror and tied his tie with slow fingers,

 

It was two minutes past seven when Jim had arrived at the Headmaster’s office and the teacher who had caught them shoved him into the office where Mycroft was already waiting in a chair. Jim took the seat next to him, glancing over once. Mycroft’s face was nothing but a mask and unease started to swirl in his stomach, mockingly.

 

“Normally,” started the Headmaster, who looked down at both of the boys as if they were lepers, “I would give you both a chance to defend the allegations against you, however, under the circumstances, I think we can all agree that there is no excuse for what happened.”

 

The old man leaned forward, lacing his fingers together on the desk and looking between the two. “It was a disgusting act and I am ashamed to have you both even together in this office. And what would compel you to do such a repulsive thing in _public_ no less…” He shook his head, cheeks flushed.

 

“I would expect this kind of behaviour from you, boy,” he spat at Jim, looking at him as if he were nothing but a stain on a chair that probably cost more than Jim’s life was worth. “I didn’t want you in this establishment to begin with, but if we’re to keep in the public’s favour, we had to take in a scholarship student, and it’s proven to be a waste of funds, just like I told the board. You are expelled, James Moriarty, and I do it with a smile on my face.”

 

Jim stared at the man with a mix of malice and shame on his face, but the Headmaster didn’t see it. Instead, he turned to face Mycroft. “And you, boy. I was astounded when I heard that Mycroft Holmes was involved in this mess. This is a disgrace on your family’s name! You were a head boy for goodness’ sake. I’m sure that this blame can come down to the Moriarty boy’s temptation—people from that lot are always looking to bring down those above them in revenge for their poverty—but I would have expected you to have more dignity and self-control. I regret to say that you, too, are expelled.”

 

This was it. It didn’t matter that the lofty bastard hated Jim, because the cheque with both of their names on it would leave him with no choice. A smug smile took to Jim’s lips at the thought of the Headmaster’s face when he saw the cheque. And he wouldn’t have to wait long—Jim looked over to see Mycroft reach into his breast pocket and pull out the small rectangular cheque and lean to pass it to the old man behind the desk.

 

A smirk took to the Head master’s lips as he looked up at Mycroft, ignoring Jim. That little  niggle of unease grew a little. Where was the reaction—the anger at being beaten?

 

“Very well, Mr Holmes. You’ve made your point clear. I thank you and your family for their donation. You’re free to go and this will be stricken from the records.”

 

Jim felt his face begin to pale. This wasn’t happening. This wasn’t real. Mycroft had to have written his name on the cheque… _had to have!_ The Headmaster held up the cheque so that Jim could see it. “Have you anything else to say, Mr Moriarty?” Jim shook as he saw the long, dark, strike through what was ever so clearly his name. The Headmaster could see it, clear as day, and he grinned at Jim.

 

This was more than just an expulsion; it was an execution. The judge laughed at the sentence and his accuser sat still, not looking at the boy he condemned.

 

“Wait outside, Mr Moriarty. A security guard will escort you back to your room for you to collect only the items that belong to you. You’ll be expected to change out of your uniform and leave that as well. You have one hour to pack your belongings under the eye of the security guard and you will then be escorted from the premises. If you ever set foot on this campus again, legal action will be taken. Are we understood?”

 

_Wait outside, Mr Moriarty. A prison guard will escort you back to your cell where you will be given an hour to have your last rites, a final meal, and a change of clothes out of your uniform into what you will wear for your execution. You will be then escorted to the gallows and hanged by the neck until dead. This will be supervised and this sentence is final. Any act of rebellion will be futile and will only disgrace your name further. Are we understood?_

 

Everything sounded as if he were underwater, and Jim could find the strength to do nothing but nod solemnly. He stood up, knees weak, and braced himself on Mycroft’s chair, pausing for a moment, before walking out of the room. The door closed behind him where the Headmaster was probably apologizing profusely to Mycroft for any offense that might have been taken.

 

Jim couldn’t focus or breathe. Finally, he leaned against some lockers, collapsing against them and sliding down. Tears, unbidden, streamed silently down his cheeks. Jim Moriarty was the model of defeat. A few moments later, the door opened and out walked the puppet master himself who started to walk past Jim. “Mycroft,” he found the strength to growl, making the man stop for a moment. “I may get to hell before you, but don’t think for a second that I won’t be waiting for you there for however long it takes for you to die after me.” The man’s mask didn’t falter and he just walked on, disappearing down another hallway and out of Jim Moriarty’s life.

 

A puppet without a master.

 

A security guard came not long after and pulled Jim to his feet, shoving him in the direction of Jim’s dorm, not saying a word. He didn’t need to—Jim could feel the contempt oozing out of the man’s skin.

 

When he came back to his room, he realised just how bare it was. It truly was nothing more than a prison cell. The guard stood outside his door, giving Jim privacy as he packed his few belongings. A notebook filled with pointless tragedies from his mind, a pen, and the Shakespeare anthology that Mrs Hudson had given him, assuring him that it was his to keep for free. What would she think when he didn’t show up for classes? Would she really care, in the end? Jim didn’t want to think about it.

 

Jim changed out of his uniform and into the old t-shirt, worn jeans, and ratty trainers he came in. Looking himself in the mirror, he saw what the rest of the school did, no matter how hard he tried to disguise himself in a fancy uniform. Jim look like nothing but the typical street urchin. Ordinary. Unassuming. Pathetic. And maybe he was.

He shrugged on his old brown coat and carried the three items he owned in his old rucksack. Jim stood in front of the door and looked into the room. It looked no different than it had from the day he came in. He had no lasting effect on the room, just as he had left no imprint on the school that was the closest thing he had to a home.

 

Cast out once again, Jim tore his eyes from it and opened the door, allowing the security guard take hold of his shoulder and escort him to the main gates of the Academy.

 

As the gates slammed shut behind him, Jim thought of his last lesson with Mrs Hudson. King Lear came to his mind. A man who had so desperately clung to power reduced to nothing. Jim chuckled sarcastically, knowing that this was the end. 

 

_Spare me your judgments and spare me your dreams'_

_Cause recently mine have been tearing my seams_

_I sit alone in this winter, clarity which clouds my mind_

 

The chuckle turned into a laugh. Jim laughed out into the icy air that stung his lungs. Everyone hated him, but who cared? What need did he have for their judgments when he showered himself with his own? Oh, his mind had been shrouded by his desire to be better than what he was born as, but maybe that was what broke him in the end.

 

_Alone in the wind and the rain you left me_

_It's getting dark darling, too dark to see_

_And I'm on my knees and your faith in shreds, it seems_

 

Jim fell down to his knees, the cold snow seeping into his jeans and soaking through his trainers, but he didn’t care. It was morning, still, but Jim couldn’t deny the way his vision was blurring and darkening. Mycroft saw through him. Mycroft didn’t care. Mycroft struck his name from the cheque knowing exactly what he was condemning Jim to. __

_Corrupted by the simple sniff of riches blown_

_I know you have felt much more love than you've shown_

_And I'm on my knees and the water creeps to my chest_

 

Is this what drowning felt like? To be alone at sea surrounded by nothing with everything pointing at your demise? He expected too much from Mycroft. Jim thought that by appealing to Mycroft’s power and giving his whole self, Mycroft could feel pity, but instead, that was his downfall. Mycroft had power and wealth, and that was all that mattered in this whole world, really. Maybe he should just give up. Maybe he should lie here and let himself go as a statement. Maybe then someone would notice or care.

 

_But plant your hope with good seeds_

_Don't cover yourself with thistle and weeds_

_Reign down, reign down on me_

 

But no one would. Jim stood up and started walking shakily on. No, he wasn’t going to give death the satisfaction of taking him here and now. Because no matter what the rest of the world thought, Jim deserved better than to die in the weeds. Mycroft had taken control of his life whether he wanted it or not. Jim was still his puppet no matter how the Master tried to deny him. And the master would reign over him and watch.

 

_Look over your hills and be still_

_The sky above us shoots to kill_

_Reign down, reign down on me_

 

Oh yes, Jim would make Mycroft Holmes watch. Jim would not give up until Mycroft Holmes saw the full extent of the power he gave to his puppet turned monster. All a man needed to become a monster was a bright enough spark of hate and Mycroft struck the flint as he struck Jim’s name from the cheque. Yes, Mycroft would watch and reign. He would succeed in life, no doubt,  because he was hungry for power and knew how to get it. But Jim knew that Mycroft would always be watching. __

_But I will hold on, I will hold on hope_

_Oh, I will hold on, I will hold on hope_

_Oh, I will hold on, I will hold on hope_

_I will hold on, I will hold on hope_

_I will hold on, I will hold on_

 

Jim’s steps gained more confidence as he strode away from the school and his creator—because that’s what Mycroft was. He would reign down and watch  his little monster of a puppet take to the streets and dance for money. Jim will become everything Mycroft abhorrs and he’ll laugh through the entire process. Jim knew though, that to succeed he would have to live in hope, day by day. With every day he survived, he struck another painful blow at Mycroft and that would be enough to hold onto.

__

 

_I begged you to hear me, there's more than flesh and bones_

_Let the dead bury the dead, they will come out in droves_

_But take the spade from my hands and fill in the holes you've made_ __

 

Jim had given Mycroft enough chances; now it was time to make the creator see. Jim may have dug his own grave, but he would manage to climb out of it, leaving Mycroft the shovel with which to try and refill the hole, knowing with every scoop of the hard dirt that he would lose.

 

_But plant your hope with good seeds_

_Don't cover yourself with thistle and weeds_

_Reign down, reign down on me_

 

Jim Moriarty walked away from Saint Bartholomew’s Academy with determination.

 

He would not allow death to take him until he completed his vengence on his creator.

 

Jim Moriarty was going to defeat Mycroft Holmes, even if it was the last thing he ever did. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow...I can't believe myself that it's done, but here it is. Again, my cowriter and I wish you our sincerest thanks for everyone who's followed us through this journey. Now that all is said and done, it would be wonderful if you could take the time to leave your comments--they will be very useful. 
> 
> A little more news: There /is/ a sequel. Don't worry...we weren't going to leave little Jim out in the snow and not tell you what happens to him! Oh no, there will be plenty more drama to come between he and his puppet master in the Part II of The Kings series. 
> 
> Thank you again for all of the support throughout this, and we'll be seeing you!
> 
> E & M


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